Editorial Comment

This is what happens when you read something in the paper and it totally makes you mad. I read the paper every morning with my coffee and breakfast. I do read the comment sections and the editorials. I do not always agree with them, and that is okay. They are written as op-ed pieces to make you think and to challenge you. But the one this morning got to me for many reasons and just ticked me off for lack of a better way to say it. So, I decided I could not let it go. I wrote my own response and posted it online. Now of course, I used an assumed name, but I am curious to see how some of my friends feel.

Dear ________,

Making a comment such as you made regarding AIDS patients dying in agony because of the availability of less expensive drugs is one of the most inhumane things I have read in a long time.

Maybe you should consider volunteering in a hospice unit where AIDS patients are cared for until they die. Or at a hospital where children who have contracted AIDS through no fault of their own are cared for until they die. It is not all about risky behavior.

Try counseling or ministering to a mother or sister or brother whose loved one has discovered they are HIV and facing a potential death sentence and the availability of any type of medication is seemingly impossible. AIDS patients are not the only ones who are looking for cheaper or less expensive medications. Do you have any idea about the combination of medications an AIDS patient must take? I think not. I know several mature adults who are not HIV who take anywhere from 4 to 8 medications per day.

Sir, you are correct when you say that the health care system is stressed. But I submit to you that the so-called AIDS epidemic is not the cause of this problem. We are the cause of this problem.

It is so easy to make callous comments when you do not have to put names with those "pathetic photos" as you called them.

My question to you is, what are you doing to make a difference or to change society. How are you influencing and promoting the ABC's of safe sex, "Abstain, Be Faithful, Use Condoms."

Do something or do not speak to something to which you know nothing or very little about.

Well, let me know what you think.