Every year on December 1st, physicians across Canada donate their day’s salaries towards HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. As medical students we don’t have a salary to donate yet, but we do have time! So today, despite being in a state of grasping for every spare minute to study for our upcoming exams, lots of us took some time today to hear a couple of speakers. One was an infectious disease specialist who works on HIV/AIDS treatment in Kingston, and the other was the director of a Kingston community program.
I learned a few things that I wanted to share!
First, HIV/AIDS is a Canadian issue! That may be bleedingly obvious to some people, but if you’re anything like me then you tend to think of AIDS as a worldwide problem, where “worldwide” means not here. The reality is that AIDS is very present in our Canadian communities. While I should certainly continue thinking about AIDS on a global level, this realization encouraged me to re-think what I can potentially do to fight AIDS. Fighting may consist of sending money overseas and raising awareness of the pandemic, but it may also involve getting more personally involved with AIDS here in Canada.
The second thing I learned is more political. I had no idea, but apparently our current Conservative government has made it abundantly clear that they will not financially support any HIV/AIDS programs that have a “harm reduction” element. Harm reduction was new terminology for me: basically it means making it safer for people to engage in behaviours that they will be doing anyway, instead of trying to change those behaviours. Condom distribution and needle exchanges are two examples of harm reduction strategies that have had meaningful, well-documented success.
From a clinical perspective, there is no alternative to harm reduction! As doctors, we have no right to say what anybody should be doing with their lives. But, we do have the responsibility to advise people about risky behaviour and offer them the tools to protect themselves.
I’m disappointed that our government hasn’t recognized the seriousness of HIV/AIDS in Canada. Instead of looking at the evidence, which says beyond any doubt that harm reduction saves lives, they have reduced a tangled social problem into an absolute moral maxim that lacks relevancy in the complexity of the “real world”.
Anyway, I’d love to hear about anything you learned on World AIDS Day 2008! Post a comment and keep the conversation going!
I heard a rumour that the first person has been ‘cured’ from AIDS from a bone marrow transplant: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7726118.stm. Also it looks like this government will not be around for much longer…so maybe that’s a good thing for the AIDS situation in our country.
Comment by Miriam Booy — December 2, 2008 @ 12:31 am
Hey, that’s pretty cool!! Thanks for the link Miriam!
The article says that this particular “cure” won’t be feasible for more than few very wealthy, experimental patients. BUT, what it does show is further evidence for immunity from a particular mutation to a particular receptor. Hopefully, eventually, someone will work out how to do gene therapy so that you could introduce that mutation into everybody, almost like a vaccine.
Gene therapy’s sort of like the holy-grail of medicine right now… it feels almost attainable, it shows great promise, and yet it’s still so far away.
Comment by Jason Booy — December 2, 2008 @ 12:58 am
I had no idea you hadn’t heard of harm reduction before Jason. I guess that’s more of a health thing that gets covered fairly often. We were actually discussing something about the needle exchange program in BC earlier in the term and how the Conservative government basically is not capable of seeing the benefits of harm reduction. It’s basically like you said, that they have reduced it to a simple moral matter, which doesn’t make any sense in the least. Hopefully though with any luck they won’t be power for much longer, which means the safe exchange program won’t close down next year.
Comment by Sarah — December 4, 2008 @ 8:20 pm