TLJ wrote:
Clare, you're letting your prejudice totally blind you .

What A I said is perfectly true - an issue with a public health aspect will always be given priority and, in my view, quite rightly so.

A I appreciates the unfairness of it and I also recognise that that is so.. Nevertheless, it is fact.

Moreover, in your tirades, do remember that HIV / AIDS is not sexuality specific and nor does its contraction necessarily imply any abuse of the body of a sufferer.May I also add my displeasure at Clare's tirades in this serious topic.

TLJ wrote:
Clare, you're letting your prejudice totally blind you .

What A I said is perfectly true - an issue with a public health aspect will always be given priority and, in my view, quite rightly so.

A I appreciates the unfairness of it and I also recognise that that is so.. Nevertheless, it is fact.

Moreover, in your tirades, do remember that HIV / AIDS is not sexuality specific and nor does its contraction necessarily imply any abuse of the body of a sufferer.

Fine I accept your views. Can I just add something? I am not prejudiced. I'm saying what many actually think and lack the guts to say. What I also am is absolutely furious that single issue politics now plays such a major role in this country. Tirades T? Is that what my contribution is because you do not agree with it?

To dismiss illnesses like MS in the way Alelle has in that post is the real disgrace. Much has been posted elsewhere about MS on this same thread and it has been established that for decades the illness and the numbers suffering from it have been ignored. Yet the numbers who suffer from it here in Scotland and the clear connection with Scotland needs to be investigated further. Other aspects need addressed to like the refusal to prescribe drugs that clearly help the condition.

Finally I know AIDS isn't just related to one section of the community however it is an absolute fact that millions was thrown at research early on when it first became known to us in this country and that many very rich celebrities set up all sorts of trusts to campaign solely from the point of view of the gay community. If stating this makes me prejudiced so be it. Personally it is becoming a joke in this country that to criticise one particular group leaves one open to the usual accusations of prejudice while the majority prefer to go the politically correct route and keep their mouths firmly shut for fear of upsetting anyone.

Clare wrote:
Personally it is becoming a joke in this country that to criticise one particular group leaves one open to the usual accusations of prejudice while the majority prefer to go the politically correct route and keep their mouths firmly shut for fear of upsetting anyone.

Occasionally I and some others have criticised the Roman Church or its policies during discussions on this forum and you have suggested that we might be prejudiced or even bigoted because of it. Why is it OK for you to critical of something and not me?

Clare - Your posts are not a tirade because people disagree with them, they are a tirade because they are ill-informed, prejudiced, and ignorant. At no point have I "dismissed MS". You are obviously incapable of seeing beyond your narrow minded prejudices in order to understand what I posted or to engage in reasoned debate on this topic.

Lydia - The figure of £500 million NHS spending on health research came from the document you posted the link to. It's mentioned on page 6. "The Department of Health (DOH) report (Bickley, 2005) that they allocate around £500m to National Health Service (NHS) trusts for health-related research." - I imagine the figure relates to England and Wales. Based on this figure, the NHS in Scotland ought to have somewhere under £50m annually for all health-related research. It's not a huge amount of money.

The reason so much is spent on what are basically glorified advertising campaigns is that it would end up costing the health service a whole lot more if they didn't spend the money on them. And these campaigns can be proven to be effective. Scotland has a rate of HIV infection of around 0.1%, in South Africa it's 10.8%, in Swaziland it's 38.8%. Swaziland is what happens when HIV infection is allowed to run unchecked. Can you imagine the costs to the health service if Scotland had the same rate of infection as Swaziland? The Scottish health system would collapse. In fact much of Scottish society would collapse. It's because there's a possibility of a disaster of such magnitude that money is spent to prevent it happening.

Scotland was quick off the mark with HIV / AIDS education and prevention programmes, and as a result Scotland has one of the lowest rates of HIV infection in the developed world. The average infection rate in Western Europe is 0.3%, almost three times the Scottish figure. In Spain the figure is 0.5%. In the USA there was more of a focus on preaching sexual abstinence as a form of HIV prevention - yet their infection rate is 0.7%, almost seven times higher than ours.

Figures for HIV infection rates are widely available online. Wikipedia has some good statistics but lumps Scotland in with the rest of the UK. I calculated the Scottish infection rate based on information here - www.hivscotland.com/stats.htm As of December 2007 there were 3882 people known to be living with HIV in Scotland. To those should be added another 1900 or so (based on standard estimates) who are HIV positive but are unaware of their HIV status. That gives a current infection rate of slightly over 0.1%. (3882, plus 1900, divided by the population of Scotland - 5,116,000 - gives 0.113%, to be more exact.)

Ask anyone who works in health and they'll tell you health messages have to be repeated constantly. In Scotland the potential threat from AIDS has been averted due to health promotion and HIV prevention programmes which take a realistic view of human nature. Our very low HIV infection rate of 0.1% proves the success of this strategy and untold thousands of Scots are alive, healthy and HIV negative as a result. It's a Scottish success story we should be proud of.

Whether or not the UK government should be spending more or less on international aid, and what it should be spent on, is a different subject entirely.

You have more of a point with smoking. (And I'm a sad nicotine addict too.)

Lets just for a moment set aside the fact that Aids is generally but I agree not exclusively now, a sexually transmitted disease. Let’s set aside the fact that as far as we know when a person contracts MS the disease has no sexually contributing factors. I say as far as we know, because in the beginning we had no knowledge that cervical cancer can be caused by a virus passed sexually. We have no idea what will come out of the research into MS. I suspect though that research so far confirms that this is caused by genes, which no person can control.

www.mssociety.org.uk/about_ms/index.html

5415 people in Scotland currently are HIV positive. As of Dec 2007

85.000 people in the UK have MS

10,500 people in Scotland currently have MS

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7508087.stm

That is prejudice. That is disparity, double the amount of sufferers and a lot less money spent to relieve symptoms or research the cause.

Will you call that prejudice, will you call that prejudice against a persons sexuality.

These are facts.

LYDIA REID wrote:

That is prejudice. That is disparity, double the amount of sufferers and a lot less money spent to relieve symptoms or research the cause.



The disparity in funding does not necessarily imply intrinsic prejudice but reflects priorities when distributing scarce resources. As has been said, public health issues will always be given priority over other issues because of the potential repercussions for society as a whole.

The potential repercussion's are the result of a selfish way of life. Go out into the street TLJ and find me one person in Scotland who is unaware that unprotected sex could lead to Aids or sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy. They decide to have sex and do not protect themselves.

People may make the excuse that this type of behaviour in underdeveloped nations is ignorance and should be dealt with by education. Can you honestly say this is the case in Scotland or the UK as a whole.

Give me a good reason why people who go out and have unprotected sex should take precedence over people who get a disease that they have absolutely no control over. That in my view is the prejudice, the fact that in the same way that organ donation is the current "passion" even though their are many diseases that kill more people so is the research into aids. No consideration into if we find a cure for the diseases that kill most people we will save money on treatment. Instead we in this country have "in" diseases and "passions". This is neither fair nor is it financially sensible.

LYDIA REID wrote:
The potential repercussion's are the result of a selfish way of life. Go out into the street TLJ and find me one person in Scotland who is unaware that unprotected sex could lead to Aids or sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy. They decide to have sex and do not protect themselves.


And those infected by an unfaithful partner ? Those infected by contaminated blood-products ? Those infected by stabbing by a discarded needle ?

That's why it's a public health issue.

Yes, I agree there are people in that situation, even in a few cases innocent babies infected by mothers, but do they outnumber the others in Scotland stricken by all these other dreadful neurological diseases. By comparison is their plight any worse than the people who contract all these other diseases. How do these numbers compare to cancer TLJ?

Watching someone, waste away from Aids must be dreadful, particularly if you love them. Is that any worse than watching a loved one die slowly from MS, cancer, losing their mind through Alzheimer’s. Losing limbs through diabetes. Palliative care is expensive even if a person is cared for at home. At sometime fairness and finance must take precedence over this "passion culture" that currently rules the world of research. Claire has a point when she states that money was thrown indiscriminately into research for Aids and it was raw research in the beginning. It was made popular by stars and Princess Diana.

Cancer, MS and many other dreadful killer diseases destroyed lives long before Aids, I did not notice stars and Princess Diana holding their hands, I did not see any huge input of money into other sexually transmitted diseases.

InfrequentAlelle

Don't respond to me in future. You invited questions in your first post on this site and I asked a question. You came back dismissing everything I said. You also stated you did not wish your sexual orientation to dominate the debate and yet you went on to do exactly that. You also told me I was more or less to drop the subject in your "lecture". Fine. In future don't invite questions and then throw your toys out of the pram if you don't like those questions!
Your dismissal of MS - for that is what it was - is deplorable. We have talked elsewhere of a programme about MS which was televised only last week where the statistics proved it is not a minor issue in the UK because of the high number of sufferers especially in Scotland.
And don't call me prejudiced because I am not. I am not narrow-minded either. Usual stereo-typing claptrap I see. If anyone disagrees just use the usual labels and go on the attack. I'm just waiting for the homophobe word. I expressed a view and I am entitled to do so as we all are. I will not be dictated to as to how I should think either.

Lydia - It seems that your basic issue is that you find it distasteful that conditions which are the patient's "own fault" are treated equally to those when the patient is "innocent". It's fundamental to medical ethics that patients are treated according to their clinical needs. It is NOT the job of a doctor to make treatment decisions based upon his or her understanding of the moral choices of the patient. Doctors are qualified to treat disease, they are not qualified to judge innocence and guilt.

If doctors were allowed to discriminate on the grounds of the moral choices of the patient, then it would be perfectly permissible for a doctor to insist that he or she was first going to treat the minor wounds of the passengers in a car which crashed, and only then, if at all, treat the life-threatening injuries of the driver who caused the accident.

If society allows doctors to determine treatment based upon the personal morality of the patient, there is nothing to stop a doctor from refusing to treat women who had abortions in the past, people who belong to a different religion, unmarried people who are sexually active, or any other person whom the doctor claims is offensive to his or her moral sensibilities.

What you are proposing would destroy medical ethics as we understand them and replace them with a mish-mash of decisions made according to the personal moral codes of individual doctors.

Here's a brief guide to medical ethics from the General Medical Council
www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_medical_pra...ties_of_a_doctor.asp

I do object to the inequality.

I think you have just shot your self in the foot.

Why is it there are so many Aids patients given priority? Why is so much money spent on abortion? Why is so much money spent on sexually transmitted diseases?

These people do not travel hundreds of miles with lives put in danger to find a cot, as do babies born prematurely. They are not refused drugs that will halt the progress of the disease, as are cancer patients. Just today, we heard of four drugs that have been refused by NICE which would give extra months to cancer patients. Scotland refused drugs for bowl cancer patients not so long ago.

Moreover, yes I do object to this in particular because Aids, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases are caused by a selfish and self-centred way of life.

Babies do not ask to be born early they have no control over this funding. Many bowl cancers and throat cancers are not caused by smoking, drinking or a selfish way of life.

To summarise yes I do object and strongly to the fact that Aids, Abortion and sexually transmitted diseases take priority over diseases that are no fault of the person who contracts them. If doctors were truly paying attention to their Hippocratic Oath they would want equality for all, and they would not allow vulnerable babies, cancer patients, and all the other group of afflictions to suffer because of this craze to cure Aids and support this countries selfish ways of having sex and allowing the country to pay for the results.

LYDIA REID wrote:
....yes I do object to this in particular because Aids, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases are caused by a selfish and self-centred way of life.


You're reasoning is a bit agley there Lydia. What about morbidly obese people, folk with alcoholic liver disease or others with the hundred and one horrible things that smokers suffer from? All three groups have entirely unnecessary self inflicted injuries from eating, drinking or smoking. Are they any less culpable than the sodomite who contracts AIDS or syphilis or gonorrhoea of the tonsils?
I do however agree that the amount of money spent on AIDS research is disproportionate when one considers the very small numbers of sufferers in the developed world. The catastrophic AIDS epidemic that's killing millions in the third world will not be ameliorated in any way by better treatments or vaccines. We have to teach them about the folly of promiscuity and be deaf to the maunderings of the so called liberal left who peddle the lie that it's a cultural thing to copulate with anything that has a pulse.

Levenax wrote:
Clare wrote:
Personally it is becoming a joke in this country that to criticise one particular group leaves one open to the usual accusations of prejudice while the majority prefer to go the politically correct route and keep their mouths firmly shut for fear of upsetting anyone.

Occasionally I and some others have criticised the Roman Church or its policies during discussions on this forum and you have suggested that we might be prejudiced or even bigoted because of it. Why is it OK for you to critical of something and not me?

Lev
I have contributed on this site on many issues and yes, I have at various times felt that some were not listening to what I was saying simply because they know my religion and were, rather than reading my posts, responding depending on their view of the church I belong to. They also appeared to be suggesting that a person who does have a religion was not capable of contributing a "balanced" view. I don't speak on behalf of any church and never have. I speak for me and at the times I have felt people were using particular issues just to "have a go" at religion I have said so. I think that is honest. I have disagreed with you often and agreed with you too and I respect your contributions. I have never called them "laughably stupid" and openly ridiculed you. I don't think that sort of thing is necessary on a site like this.

Lydia - I've shot myself in the foot by pointing out that doctors can't discriminate? I don't see how you manage to arrive at that conclusion unless you believe that people with HIV get preferential treatment on the NHS, but that's simply untrue. Perhaps you confuse the public visibility of HIV / AIDS with favouritism. I've already explained at great length why it is that there are such public awareness campaigns for HIV but not for MS. I've already explained how funding for health research works.

If a new and expensive drug for HIV patients were to come onto the market tomorrow, HIV patients would experience the exact same problems getting it as MS patients currently experience getting Beta-Interferon. When the anti-HIV drug Retrovir and other advanced antivirals were first put on the market some years back, the NHS refused to pay for them. The NHS used the same arguments they're currently using to avoid paying for Beta-Interferon for MS. Every time any new and expensive drug first becomes available we see these arguments about funding and access. Just last year it was a new drug for breast cancer patients which made the news.

There is an article about this very subject in today's Independent about the NHS refusing to fund new drugs for kidney cancer. It explains the process of drug approval quite well.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-...end-life-888232.html

"Moreover, yes I do object to this in particular because Aids, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases are caused by a selfish and self-centred way of life."

What you're saying is that when funding is limited we should make decisions about health spending based upon the morality of patients. Your moral standards aren't mine, and neither of us have the same moral standards as the guy along the road. So who gets to decide what's moral in medical care?

I find it strange that you are proposing to stop funding the treatment of illnesses which can be fatal, but not proposing that the NHS should reduce funding for something like psoriasis. Psoriasis can be painful, distressing and unslightly, but it's not going to kill anyone. (And before I'm accused of disrespecting the suffering of psoriasis patients, I have psoriasis myself.) If you want to have a discussion about NHS funding priorities, why aren't you talking about reducing spending on non-fatal conditions?

HIV infection is strongly associated with unprotected sex. Throat cancer is strongly associated with alcohol intake and smoking. Bowel cancer is strongly associated with an unhealthy diet. Breast cancer is strongly associated with failure to check regularly for lumps. We are all responsible for our own well-being, and we all make bad choices sometimes. But you seem to be proposing to make sure that people's mistakes will kill them.