AIDS

Today is World AIDS Day and you may make of that what you will. I did know someone afflicted with AIDS. A few years ago, he died of it, or if you prefer, of the secondary infections that AIDS makes possible.

This person was Dr. Paul E. Gray, a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville. He was happily married, definitely heterosexual, and monogamous - it would have been difficult to keep things a secret in the small town of Platteville, WI had they been otherwise. He certainly was not using illicit drugs, either.

The common stereotypes about people with AIDS do not apply. So what happened? How did Dr. Gray get the disease? His physicians gave it to him. Inadvertently and unknowingly, but that's about as good a description as any.

See, Dr. Gray did take some medication, prescribed to keep him alive, and it worked. But what Dr. Gray suffered from was a blood disease, hemophilia. He needed blood products to counter the hemophilia and before there was any test at all for HIV there was still HIV in the blood supply.

When I hear "AIDS victim" or "AIDS patient" I don't think of the stereotypes flung about thoughtlessly. I think of Dr. Gray, whose medication was contaminated by a virus nobody knew about at the time. And when I see, "AIDS is punishment from God!" well, I don't have a very high opinion of those who claim that, or their version of a god.