How to prevent HIV/AIDS

Here in SA, we have big problems with HIV/AIDS.  These problems are not helped in any way by our esteemed Health Minister, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her wacky dietary suggestions which she claims will prevent and/or cure the infection, nor by her involvement with the Rath Foundation, who claim that vitamins (which they will helpfully sell you) can stop progression of HIV into AIDS.  

And who could forget the comments allegedly made by our President-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma during his rape trial that he took a shower after sex with an HIV-positive individual in order to prevent his contracting the virus? Ah… Happy days!

With these figures in authority, it’s sadly perhaps understandable that there is some confusion amongst the masses over HIV and AIDS in general. And that was illustrated by Papi Molimoeng’s letter published in The Times today:

Government should focus on jobs

The government wants us to believe that there is nothing that can be done to minimise the spread of the HIV-Aids pandemic.
Like any virus, the best way of stopping the virus is to encourage prevention.
If more people had jobs they would not be exposed to poverty.
As a result, they get bored and become infected with the virus. The health department and the government needs to make sure research scientists do their jobs, and stop pointing fingers.

I read the letter. Then I read it again. And I too became confused.

Fortunately, working as a research scientist, I rarely find myself bored. Not only will this please Papi, it seems that it will also stop me getting AIDS. Whoopie.
In fact, after having digested what (I think) Papi is trying to say, I am definitely going to encourage the prevention of me getting bored. I will also undertake not to point fingers. Unless I’m trying to indicate directions to a lost motorist or similar. It’s for my own good, after all.

And if all that doesn’t work, I’ll try eating beetroot and garlic in the shower. Messy, but worth it.

9 thoughts on “How to prevent HIV/AIDS

  1. Lol!! If having a job was the best way to stop Aids, wouldn’t life be wonderful!! Trouble is… people meet people at work… all those office romances! Does this mean an office romance is a better bet than one with a bored (and unemployed) person??

    ~Adds a little piece of the 6000 puzzle to the table~ 😀

    Helga Hansen’s last blog post was: A Cut Above The Rest? (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

  2. I don’t understand? Does that mean that although I am bored but employed I am immune?

    Or uhm …. no, wait I am not sure. Maybe I should get a position of power and then it would all be clear to me?

    Pamela’s last blog post was: Smooth Talker (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

  3. At least your bureaucrats have and practice freedom of speech. Here in the US, any public deviation from the Republican party’s “abstinence-only” policy is punished with a weekend in Dick Cheney’s sling.

  4. Scott Morgan Lewis » Riiiight. And you think that spreading potential deadly misinformation about HIV and AIDS to a population, ~20% of whom are HIV+, is a good thing, then?
    Viva free speech! Viva!

  5. Sorry if I offended. It was a macabre joke, which after 20 years of dodging the HIV bullet myself while maintaining a healthy gay sex life and looking out for some friends who haven’t been so lucky, is my own way of dealing with such existential absurdities. If I had waited for or trusted advice from my own government officials (Reagan’s back in the day when I reached the age of consent), I’d most likely be dead now. In my experience, taking responsibility for ourselves and our communities is the only way to ensure survival. As a member of a community with an HIV+ rate > 20%, I’m not here now because Ronald Reagan refused to say the word AIDS until 1985. I’m here now because of outreach (HIV testing and demographically targeted prevention education) done by a nonprofit organization (charity) started by gay men in the 70s because they were tired of being treated like second-class citizens at Philadelphia’s old VD clinics.

    So yes, viva free speech! (Use it while you’ve got it.)

    Scott Morgan Lewis’s last blog post was: (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

  6. Scott Morgan Lewis » No offence taken. But if you’d seen what our President and politicians were saying to a underinfromed, naive and accepting audience on a daily basis, then you’d see how lucky you’ve been.

  7. Its been broken. All this time, my reader’s been broken.

    How I’ve pined for 6000.co.za, how I’ve longingly looked at the empty inbox reader and wished upon a star…

    All this time its been broken.

    Sigh.

    SheBee’s last blog post was: Good bye and so long… (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

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