cookmo

I am currently taking a medical ethics class and we have a tendency to deviate from the topic were supposed to be discussing. In the class on thursday this woman told us about a dilemma she is having. She lives in an apartement 2 doors down from her friend who has full blown AIDS. This persons 3 year old son also has it, thats how she found out about it. Well, the woman is very bitter and she is a prostitute. She was never a prostitute before contracting the virus, but now she wants to spread it as much as possible. Ive heard urban miths about this, but never really thaught that any one could be so vile. She says that she knows alot of the tricks and they are men with families and children. Whos wives have no idea. One of guys has had a cold for like six months now and has sores on his mouth, and shes pretty sure he has it now. She said at one point the girl was so sick she was in a hospice and they thaught she would die, but they gave her a new med and she rallied. She was hooking the very next day after coming home. So anyway, this woman in my class wants to tell, but she is afraid to. Its a very close community and she has her own kids to worry about. She scared of the repercussions. She tried talking to the health departement once, but because of hippa they wouldnt talk to her. Then also, she is not really sure if it is her place to say anything because these men obviously know what risk they are taking by being with a prostitute in the first place. The best we could come up with was to make an annonomous report on the prostitution, but she would probably be back on the streets soon anyway.What do you guys think?

Jimellow

Mediocre practice on the prostitute's part. Knowingly giving someone HIV, with malicious intent, is some form of murder to me. I'd call the police. Isn't prostitution illegal?

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cookmo

Yes it is illegal ,but you cant just call police and say so and so has aids and is screwing for money. you have to evidence....

cookmo

And even if the police asked the guys about it, they would lie because they would be embarassed.

cookmo

Soory, I should have been more clear about what I was really asking..we all agreed this was murder and just about the most horrible thing one could do to another. But, do you think the woman in my class has a moral obligation to get involved, or to protect her family only? and just how involved should she get.How involved would you be willing to get? Also, I am sure that this is not the only case like this out there and what do you think that society should do with people like this? And I dont mean things like put them in a leper colony, but jail, or mental hospital????

Dilbert1234567

I think she does have a moral obligation. if your next door neighbor was killing people in their house, wouldn't you, or would you just stand by and watch ti happen again and again. Have her call the police, and tell them what she knows, the cops will do the legwork and find the evidence, thats thier job.

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cookmo

She is afraid to call the police. She doesnt want to get subpeonad to court. Also, what she is really afraid of is that people will know that it was her, and when they are dealing with their wives finding out and leaving them, they will take out their anger on her. She lives in the projects, and she doesnt have the option of moving. Alot of the men arent good people, if you know what I mean, and she does have a valid reason to be scared.

Plaid13

Call the police it is murder if not "accedentaly" run her over with a bus. Aids is basicaly a modern plauge people like her will be the downfall of humanity. Sure the guys she sleeps with arnt exactly top quality men that deserve to live a perfect life but.... they might have wives that are great people that never do anything wrong other then sticking with that trashy guy.

She has a moral obligation and a legal one. legaly shes standing by and letting her neighbor kill people. that makes her a accompliss to the crime right there. just as if she was watching her neighbor cut someone up with a axe. its all the same in the end if its instant death or it takes 15 years.

Lucarelli

My conscience wouldn´t allow me to just ignore the whole thing no matter how scared I was.

CSflim

I fail to see any kind of moral dilemma here what-so-ever. She is aware of a woman doing something, which more-or-less amounts to murder. It is absolutely her responsibility to notify the police.

Of course the police can't just arrest and charge a woman soley on the basis that so-and-so made an allegation against her. They will have to gather evidece and build a case against her. But this is no different from any other crime.

As for lacking the courage to stand up in court - I'd imagine that there is some way that she can notify the police anonomously, if she really feels that that is neccessary.

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Jimellow

My take on this is the people already have AIDs as a result of this woman. That is not fixable. From here on out, people can continue to do nothing in an effort to stop this prostitute, and more people can become infected, ruining yet more lives and families along the way.

Or someone can report her and put the means to stopping her into action. The infected wives of the husbands might be upset, but I would consider a little discontentment to be well worth the saving of future lives and families.

I find it hard to believe that there would be many that would support a known AIDs carrier maliciously running around and spreading it as quickly and completely as possible. The fact that they are getting paid for it all the while makes it that much more despicable.

I'd definitely call the police, and if I knew about it and did nothing, I would have trouble waking up every day, because indirectly, I am partly responsibile for nothing being done, and thus allowing this malicious practice to continue unchecked.

If reporting the woman pisses people off, big deal. I'd rather piss a few people off and save lives, than do nothing and remain on good terms with a murderous prostitute.

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Dilbert1234567

she can remain anonomus, the police should have a tip line or something, if nothign else, she can call and say she will be no part of it, but she need them to get involved because this is just wrong.

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highthief

How can one even wonder if the person has a moral obligation? If you saw someone with a gun, walking out into the street, swearing his was going to kill the first 20 people he sees, is there a person who wouldn't think it was right to call the cops?

There is no dilemma here.

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kentucky_lady

any man taking money from his family to give to a prostitute is disgusting, but he doesnt deserve aids, neither does his wife or who ever else he may be seeing.
do you suppose it makes the infected prostitute feel better to spread her virus?
it amounts to premeditated murder, thats sad ,and sadder if she isnt stopped.
what about the children in this situation, they will eventually be left without parents.

Elphaba

I don't mean to cause offense, cookmo, but how well do you know this woman that is making this claim? Is there any possibility that she is an attention seeker? She claims a horror, but refuses to act on it. My bs alarm has sounded on this one.

cookmo

You have a really valid point. I mean she seems legit, but you never know. There were several people in the class who offered to call someone for her, but she did not want to. I really just think that she's afraid that some thug will shoot her, or one of her sons. I know its eating her up. She says it's all that she can think about, morning, noon, and night. And she could be a good actress, but she really seemed upset. Not that age is indicative of much, but she is 43 and seems really respectable, and I dont think that she has ever even spoke in class before this and we are 8 weeks into the quarter.

Nimetic

Surely the police can tail the woman, watch her pick her up, test her and charge her with an offence more serious than prostitution (that's legal here)

I thought most places passed laws relating to this... over here, I think that this is "intention to cause injury" or somesuch. Jeez. I don't know the law. Anyways, I thought that specific laws had been passed in most develped countries to deal with such things.

What a sad mess though. I'm thinking of the kids and wives.

nezmot

Why is this a dilemma? Seems pretty cut and dried to me.

raeanna74

If nothing else she should report the woman to social services. If she has a son and is hooking out of her own apartment that is exposing the child to these men and creating an unsafe environment for the child. At the very least he needs to be removed from that home.

If she has her child removed then she could be put under more strict surveillance legitimately and it would be more difficult for her to operate.

Other's here said it too. There are annonymous tip lines. If the woman was truely concerned for her safety then she needs to report it, and MOVE. I know moving is hard but one does what one needs to.

I agree also that this sounds a little trumped up. I'm wondering if the woman isn't a little paranoid and imagining things. Or an attention whore.

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Daniel_

There's a secondary issue - you've been told the story, and if you take it at face value you may argue that you have enough inforation to at least call the police and say that you hav been told that a hooker working out of such and such a building has HIV/AIDS and is deliberately spreading it to her tricks.

If your classmate is BSing then her bluff is called. If not, then the hooker is dealt with and your classmate is vindicated.

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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cookmo

I think I'm bieng misundestood about what I meant when I titled the post dilemma. Obviously ,I think the woman in the class should practice some utilitarianism and do the right thing regardless, but what I meant by dilemma is about what society should do to prevent this from happening. I think that this is a common occurence, and I believe that there is a psychological term for it (I'll try to find it). I was curious as to what others thaught, i.e. the rights of people with AIDS. And I am in no way saying that everyone with AIDS does this, or are bad, or should be treated in a less than dignified manner, but it only takes a few......

Daniel_

Ah - Either I mis-read the OP, or you were not as clear as you were just there ^^^^^^.

Probably me...

Right - I would say that in terms of what "society" should do to slow down (or reverse) the spread of HIV/AIDS, it's pretty simple.

• Test well.
• Test early.
• Test widely.
• Test for nothing.
• Make HAART free at the point of use to all patients in all countries.
• Make condoms widely available, free, to all sex workers.
• Make selling sex without barrier protection a serious criminal offence (in the US i believe that this is known as a felony?), REGARDLESS of the HIV status of the sex-worker r the client, and REGARDLESS of the local laws allowing/ignoring general sex-working.

All to be funded by a combination of public expenditure, windfall taxes from drug and sex-industry companies, etc. (for example, how about a tax of 90% of the sales of all pornography that encourages unsafe sex?).

All in all, knowing your HIV status is essential to stopping the spread of the disease, as is understanding and avoiding unsafe practices.



[EDIT] Just remembered that I used jargon. HAARRT = Highly Active AntiRetroviral Therapy (the latest anti HIV drugs).

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

highthief

"what society should do to prevent this from happening"

???

You mean, how do you stop some sick, twisted piece of dirt from deliberately infecting others?

There are laws against it. If you go out to infect someone you can be charged with assault and with manslaughter. You can be sued. There are deep rooted societal morals that act against it. But at the end of the day, there will always be sick freaks who want to hurt other people, no matter what laws on are on the books.

__________________
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cookmo

Are you always so combative? Seriously, who the hell peed in your wheaties?


What I was refering to was something like a national registry. In my state you can go online and type in your address, and pictures with all of the sex offenders in your area show up. They are also required to re-register every time they move. I don't know if these rules are the same nationwide. And yes, I do know that sex offenders have done something to be disenfranchised and have their rights revoked, and people with AIDS have a virus and have done nothing to deserve it. But, if we do not take drastic preventative measures the entire world could become like sub-saharan Africa. Have you read those statistics? So until there is a cure, would some type of easily accessable national registry of known AIDS patients be such a bad thing? Even if it violates some rights?....

On a different note, This thread that I started was the first ever, anywhere. So I apologise about not communicating well. Next time I will try to be more clear.

highthief

1) No one peed in my cornflakes. I do see red, as most human beings do, when they hear of pieces of trash that have wilful disregard for human life. I have nothing nice to say about such dirtbags. I see no reason to hide my disgust of such gutter trash. I'm not mad at you. If I'm mad at you, I'll call you names, belittle your family, and get banned.

2) I think that is a terrible idea. When it comes to sex offenders, I oppose the idea of registries. Once a person has paid a debt to society, via jail time, fines, etc, their debt is paid (except for the record they carry) - except under the sex offender registry, your debt is never paid, and it follows you around forever, leading to acts of vigilante justice, and the inability for the parolee to ever lead a productive life. I see no point to such a registry.

As for people with AIDS - you are espousing the equivalent of forcing AIDS sufferers to walk around, as the Jews in German concentration camps and ghettos did, with little identifiers like Stars of David attached to their clothes. Little pink triangles? I think the Nazis did that as well.

There is little danger of AIDS spreading as it is has in Africa in the Western world. It would have done so already. Who gets AIDS? People with depressed immune systems to start with who engage in high risk behaviours. If you're an undernourished Botswanan already suffering from endemic illness like herpes, genital sores, worms, etc, who engages in high risk sexual behaviour you're odds are pretty high you'll get AIDS. Africans suffer from depressed immune systems to begin with, which makes them more succeptible to AIDS and other illnesses. Of course, a healthy, well fed person can contract AIDS, but it is obvious it is not as easily done.

3) Sounds good. Welcome to the TFP.

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tecoyah

Murder, lying, hatred.....all parts of our flawed human nature.

What do we do to stop these things?

Everything we can, thus we have laws. Unfortunately these laws are useless if society does not support, and enforce them. It is up to people like you, me and the guy over there to make damn sure these types of crimes are reported at the very least. To do otherwise is to neglect our duty to society as a whole.

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cookmo

You seriously think it can't spread here like in africa, Asia, and is now starting to in Europe? I guess we Americans are so superior? Most new cases of AIDS here occur between the 18-24 year old age group. You never screwed up once when you were young and dumb( I assume we all were at one time) and had some form of unsafe sex? Have you made every person you have been with show you papers from the health department first? And as for suppressed immune systems, AIDS is on the rise in black America, if you look at the statistics the people who are getting AIDS here are poor, have little or no access to healthcare, and are on welfare. Have you ever tried to feed a family on food stamps? You would discover how quickly one can become malnourished. The sad fact is that fruits and vegetables are luxury items for many in America. So, what do you think will happen to an already strained social net, when each year more and more pressure is applied to it? There will be even less social help to go around, the poor will get sicker, and henceforth AIDS will spread. Repeat cycle....We have become like everyone else.

I understand the serious impact marginilization can have on a group of people. I am not saying to persecute AIDS patients by making them wear little red A's on their sleeves. I am not saying to persecute them at all. But the general feel of the public in America currently is that we all must give up some freedoms for protection as a whole.And the two don't compare, the idea is to save lives, not genocide.

As for sex offenders, in my opinion those who commit crimes against children never should have a chance to get their rights back. I know that not all sex offenders are child abusers, but alot are.

Thanks for the welcome

Jimellow

Nope, primarily because I don't want AIDs or other STDs.

No papers, but STD testing before a unsafe sexual relationship is certainly a common practice, and should be encouraged.

I've not seen these statistics, but a link would be appreciated if you have one.

I honestly don't get this logic. Why will AIDs spread as a result of the poor getting sicker?

Hmm, well if the individual practices safe sex and doesn't share needles when using heavy drugs, the chances of getting AIDs can get greatly reduced. If people enter sexual relationships without practicing safe sex and requesting STD testing first, getting AIDs shouldn't be too much of a shock when they do in fact find out they have it.

There are diseases that are very tough, almost impossible, to prevent. Some types of cancer, for instance. But AIDs is not hard to prevent at all, given the right protection methods and restrictions when it comes to sexual activity.

I don't think people with AIDs should have to wear labels, letters, or anything to indicate they are a carrier. I do think people that don't want AIDs should practice safe sex, as well as pre-relationship testing if they don't intend to practice safe sex. Personal accountability is important. Those that don't practice it, may very well end up with AIDs. They might get lucky some of the time, or even all of the time, but to me it seems like a silly risk to take, when prevention is so easy.

__________________
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Da Munk

It's unlikely that AIDS will become an epidemic in America on the scale of the one in Africa. It has nothing to do with Americans being superior and everything to do with resources. Lack of education, lack of medical resources, tribal customs, and the Catholic church are all factors that have lead to the uncontrolled spread of the disease in Africa. Even our poor have more access to resources than those in Africa.

Creating an AIDS registry would do nothing but potentially endanger the lives of AIDS sufferers. People who engage in high risk behavior aren't going to check a registry first, and people who don't engage in high risk behavior don't need to know. Giving up freedoms for protection is a bad idea to begin with, but giving up freedoms for absolutely nothing is worse.

cookmo

The reason I was making the correlation about nutrition and AIDS is because the previous poster said that one of the reasons people in Africa get AIDS is because they have poor nutrition, I was trying to point out that many people here also have poor nutrition ,because of social condtions and lifestyle choices.

I agree that the spread of AIDS should not be hard to prevent with massive efforts aimed at education, but with the right wing conservative christians highjacking of the government we are moving away from teaching prevention to teaching only abstinance. I think this could be seriously detrimental because alot of people blow off abstinance, and then they don't have the knowledge that they need to protect themselves from harm.

For some reason the link to the actual page is broken, this is the site, click on HIV data at the top, then on the left side of the next page click on UNAIDS/WHO AIDS epidemic update 2005. From here you can either look at the whole report, which is long, or scroll down to almost the bottom to North America, Western and Central Europe. I am sorry for the problem.
Here is a link http://www.unaids.org/en/

highthief

No, I don't see AIDS spreading here as it has in Africa. It would have already. The only way you'd see AIDS spread among straight, non-drug users in the west is if we had a significant economic crash that pushed people into a poorer state of nutrition and medical care, which would decrease the national immune system, and cause perhaps an upsurge in prostitution and other forms of increased, unsafe sexual activity.

In many parts of Africa, it is normal, commonplace, for a large percentage of the men to regularly (weekly) seek the service of a prostitute, married or not. There is no hint of this being immoral or wrong in their society. This happens only in the very margins of the west (on such a scale), and even then, is not preferred.

AIDS has been around, as a diagnosed illness, for 25 years. It has probably been around a lot longer than that, undiagnosed. If straight, white, middle class America (or Canada, Britain, Germany, etc) was going to get it, we would have got it by now. But it is simply not a significant problem.

Is it a problem in the ghettoes? Yes, though even so, it is not on the scale of Africa, where in places like Botswana perhaps 1/3 of the population has AIDS. Even so, this is nothing new. Tuberculosis, typhoid, now AIDS - illness has always followed the poor, weak and immune supressed around.

The point is nothing has really changed. AIDS remains confined to specific social groups within the west, it's not spreading - and unlike typhoid or tuberculosis, there are readily accessible means for people to prevent AIDS. Don't fuck strangers. Wear a condom. Don't share needles.

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highthief

I agree 100% - that sums it up very well.

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cookmo

Touche....