Reply #4: Another piece of lazy journalism.

[JackBeck]

You can't be "AIDS-infected". AIDS is a "diagnosis". I'm getting so sick of the media using the word "AIDS" as a scare tactic. A person is infected with a virus, in this case, HIV. That virus can lead to an AIDS diagnosis. An AIDS diagnosis occurs when one of the following three things happens: 1) An opportunistic infection, 2) CD4 cells drop below 200, or 3) CD4% drops below 14%. The current definition went into effect Jan. 1, 1993. It was created for two reasons: 1) to track how many people are in danger of being seriously ill due to HIV; and 2) so that someone whose immune system is seriously compromised can qualify for benefits.

Another common misconception is that someone with HIV or an AIDS diagnosis looks a certain way. I attribute this to how when the media finally got around to paying attention to the fact that thousands of people were dying in this country, they splashed images of gay men at the last stages of this infection. They usually had Kaposi's sarcoma (the purple lesions) and looked like they were wasting away. People living with HIV don't "look" sick. That's why I find: "a healthy person, by all outward appearances and his own assurances" an attitude that should have been left in the last millennium.