Nonsensical Expertise
Welcome to the land of make believe, where everything is happy and gay, the birds sing your name, the squirrels press your pants for you, every woman on the planet looks like Mandy Moore or (a classy) Lindsey Lohan, and everyone in the United States is routinely tested for AIDS.
Well, if you pull up your chairs and listen to Grandpa Fly, here's a little story. When I was twelve, I was in the hospital for twelve solid days with a massive blood clot throughout my entire right leg, which as the result of being almost completely sedentary for two weeks. The reason? Despite being exposed numerous times as a child, I didn't contract the chicken pox until I was twelve years old, and was at that point so miserable that I spent two weeks just laying on the sofa in my parents' bedroom during the day and sleeping at night. Anyway, I digress.
Part of my course of treatment required that a phlebotomist (sp?) take my blood no less than three times a day during my time in the hospital in order to adjust my medication. By about the second or third time they did it, it freaked me out to the degree that I pulled clear away from the needle; thank God it didn't break off. At any rate, from that day on I've not once had a needle in my arm. I've required every technician since to take the blood out of my hand.
The last time my blood was taken was during in about July of 2000 for my ROTC entry physical. No blood was coming out of my hand, and I got more and more nauseous until I finally vomited profusely (though it was mostly water, I luckily hadn't eaten anything yet that day). Eventually, after the rest of the exam was done, a former Navy corpsman, God bless her, was able to get the blood out of me by laying me down on an exam table and having my arm out.
The moral of the story? I'm unafraid of blood, but I hate needles. But wait, there's more!
Unlike so many of the slack-jawed idiots out there who ignored what their health teachers told them throughout their twelve years of public education, I have never done any elicit drug, whether inhaled, snorted, or injected. No needle sharing, no threat of HIV transmission that way. In addition, and in spite of overwhelming libido and machismo, I have abstained from any sexual contact that would cause the transmission of venereal diseases. No risk there.
In spite of their claim that the cost of testing everyone would outweigh the cost of late treatment, I think one can effectively and legitimately pull the bullshit card on this one. I would consider any such testing scheme to be invasive, intrusive, and at least bordering on socialist. This proposal is completely unacceptable.
Urging a major shift in U.S. policy, some health experts are recommending that virtually all Americans be tested routinely for the AIDS (search) virus, much as they are for cancer and other diseases.
Since the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, the government has recommended screening only in big cities, where AIDS rates are high, and among members of high-risk groups, such as gay men and drug addicts.
But two large, federally funded studies found that the cost of routinely testing and treating nearly all adults would be outweighed by a reduction in new infections and the opportunity to start patients on drug cocktails early, when they work best.
"Given the availability of effective therapy and preventive measures, it is possible to improve care and perhaps influence the course of the epidemic through widespread, effective and cost-effective screening," Dr. Samuel A. Bozzette wrote in an editorial accompanying the studies, which appear in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Well, if you pull up your chairs and listen to Grandpa Fly, here's a little story. When I was twelve, I was in the hospital for twelve solid days with a massive blood clot throughout my entire right leg, which as the result of being almost completely sedentary for two weeks. The reason? Despite being exposed numerous times as a child, I didn't contract the chicken pox until I was twelve years old, and was at that point so miserable that I spent two weeks just laying on the sofa in my parents' bedroom during the day and sleeping at night. Anyway, I digress.
Part of my course of treatment required that a phlebotomist (sp?) take my blood no less than three times a day during my time in the hospital in order to adjust my medication. By about the second or third time they did it, it freaked me out to the degree that I pulled clear away from the needle; thank God it didn't break off. At any rate, from that day on I've not once had a needle in my arm. I've required every technician since to take the blood out of my hand.
The last time my blood was taken was during in about July of 2000 for my ROTC entry physical. No blood was coming out of my hand, and I got more and more nauseous until I finally vomited profusely (though it was mostly water, I luckily hadn't eaten anything yet that day). Eventually, after the rest of the exam was done, a former Navy corpsman, God bless her, was able to get the blood out of me by laying me down on an exam table and having my arm out.
The moral of the story? I'm unafraid of blood, but I hate needles. But wait, there's more!
Unlike so many of the slack-jawed idiots out there who ignored what their health teachers told them throughout their twelve years of public education, I have never done any elicit drug, whether inhaled, snorted, or injected. No needle sharing, no threat of HIV transmission that way. In addition, and in spite of overwhelming libido and machismo, I have abstained from any sexual contact that would cause the transmission of venereal diseases. No risk there.
In spite of their claim that the cost of testing everyone would outweigh the cost of late treatment, I think one can effectively and legitimately pull the bullshit card on this one. I would consider any such testing scheme to be invasive, intrusive, and at least bordering on socialist. This proposal is completely unacceptable.
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