AIDS remains an effect of irresponsibility

You probably think this editorial has nothing to do with you.

You are a well-informed member of society. You understand that AIDS is contractible only through exchange of bodily fluids. You don't use intravenous drugs and haven't had a major surgery involving a blood transfusion.

The only way you could possibly contract AIDS is through sexual contact, and since you're pretty careful there, and AIDS cases are decreasing, you should be fine, right?

Wrong.

Saturday is World AIDS Day. It is a chance for some public attention to be focused not on our fears of anthrax, but on the very real threat of AIDS.

Sure, you've heard the lectures and have been subjected to the same after-school specials as the rest of us. Our generation was the first to grow up with AIDS as the worst consequence of irresponsible sex, instead of pregnancy.

Why, then, is it estimated that one in 500 college students still suffer from it? Why is it the fifth leading cause of death for Americans between 25 and 44?

We aren’t contracting AIDS because we don't know how people get infected. We're contracting AIDS because we aren't taking the responsibility to protect ourselves.

Alcohol and oral sex may be at the root of the college AIDS epidemic. Though college has created a climate where both are socially acceptable, neither is as safe as we believe.

AIDS can be contracted from oral sex. In America, and especially in college, it is seen as the next step up from making out, and a way to enjoy being intimate without the risks of pregnancy. Because it seems to be more "safe" than intercourse, protection is rarely used. But it's still needed.

And sexual encounters spiced with alcohol or drug use often lack the coherent thought required to use protection. Anonymous partners mean possibly infected partners. If the one in 500 estimation is correct, then there are at least 76 students with AIDS at Purdue.

That's not a huge number, but only one is enough to infect you.

AIDS has been around for 20 years and, in 20 years, we've learned that the more we know, the safer we think we are and the more we tend to be irresponsible.

And AIDS is the ultimate proof of how deadly irresponsibility can be.

Editorial Board: Keith Thomas, Tom McHenry, Erica Sagon, Matt Poston, John Wakefield, Shawn McGann.

Drivers: show concern

AIDS remains an effect of irresponsibility

Climbing wall would help ‘improve resume’

Organization stays quiet about founder

OPINIONS DESK PHONE:
(765) 743-1111 ext. 256

Opinions editor:
Tom McHenry

To send a letter to the editor, please email opinions@purdueexponent.org