AIDS :: Free AIDS Essays

Michelle Lee Pelletier & Sarah Smith December, 16, 1998 Mr. Marquis Honors Chemistry Aids A.I.D.S is an epidemic of the nineties. There are over one million people infected with the HIV in the United States, and over 250,000 cases of Aids. The World Health Organization estimates that there are between five and ten million infected with the H.I.V virus. This number is rising steadily. A.I.D.S is the end result of H.I.V, and to this day there is no cure. H.I.V was discovered in 1981, but not until 1984 was it proven to be the cause of A.I.D.S. Since then the definition of A.I.D.S. has changed many times, and will no doubt keep changing. And as people learn more about it, they seek out a cure. Scientist have been working hard on a cure for more than a decade. They have come up with many pill "cocktails" or other forms of medications, but so far the cure is still far away. People with A.I.D.S/HIV are running out of time, yet it seems that there is sadly till a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding of the disease, and without understanding a cure is pushed farther aw ay. Stealing a chance of survival from another person. The myths and truths need to be sorted out, a cure must be found, and the disease itself must be contained. The HIV virus was discovered in 1981. Compared to many other diseases that have had a relatively huge impact on mankind, it is relatively new. Cancers and so forth have been here since man. HIV was not connected to Aids, or proven to be the cause until 1984. Since The discovery it has gone through many changes, and many names. HIV was formally known as Lymphadenopathy-associated virus (lAV), Human T-Cell lymotropic virus type III (HTLV III). It is relatively new, which means that both AIDS and HIV are subjected to much change through the new few decades, we may know a significant amount about it at this time, but new information is learned everyday. The information behind the cause of Aids is inconclusive. Though it has been said the first case from a monkey in Africa, this may not be the story, but man did get the virus from monkeys. How they got it from the monkey is another thing. Perhaps the "monkey" (which is immune to the virus, which is believed to be because the mon key doesn't have co-receptors on it's white blood cells) had bleeding gums or had a higher content of HIV in its blood system.