I took this great class last year called contemporary issues. My favorite part of the class was the term papers. Oh the heavenly assignment of 5-10 pages. I love (LOVE) writing long papers. You work on it for a month, researching and highlighting and reading books, and then you just sit down and write for five hours straight. When I'm done I feel the engine on my proverbial "Quality" train slow down and just coast to a crawel, and I stick my head out of the window and look at the distances that I traveled. That's the best part. The same thing happens when I do art. I look and look until I feel the image or emotion burning in my mind and I can't do anything until I unleash it on a canvas. Then I go to my mom's art studio (read transformed garage with couches), and sit and paint all day till my back is stiff and my fingers shake. I love the release.
Edit: In AP psychology, we call that "flow". Ugh AP exams next week!!
Here's one of my term papers from last year:
The HIV/AIDS Problem In Sub-Sahara Africa
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is thought that AIDS was originated from a viral disease called Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) that is found in chimpanzees. It eventually crossed species to humans hundreds of years ago (avert.org). The virus was first identified in 1981 when an overwhelming amount of otherwise healthy young men began to succumb to “rare infections” (Oxford Atlas of the World). By 1984, the cause had been traced to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which can remain dormant for many years, and sometimes even indefinitely (Oxford Atlas of the World). In 2002, records show that AIDS killed 25 million people worldwide, and another 42 million worldwide were infected with the HIV virus. Thirty million of those infected lived in Africa (Oxford World Atlas). In sub-Sahara Africa, AIDS is the leading cause of death. More than 15 billion people have died from AIDS since it first became a pandemic (avert.org). The spread of this disease in sub-Sahara Africa has been perpetuated by a few root problems such as the population’s continued ignorance about the disease and its transmission (caused by censorship, misinformation, and superstition), and the limited number of health care facilities and trained health care professionals. Although the solutions are complicated and diverse, weeding out the root problems of ignorance and poor health care are essential steps that the government can take towards slowing, and maybe one day stopping the transmission of HIV/AIDS. It is also important for the educated and informed citizens of Africa to make it their responsibility to share accurate information about HIV and its transmission.
Ignorance is one of the major reasons that AIDS continues to spread so rapidly in Africa. If the people don’t understand how HIV is transmitted, then they will continue to engage in the risky behaviors that allow the virus to spread unchecked. The task of getting the information to the population of Africa about how HIV and AIDS are transmitted (i.e. via shared hypodermic needles or through sex without a condom), is one of the first steps necessary to slowing the spread of this virus. Although abstaining from sex altogether is the only way to completely avoid getting HIV, condoms use has been shown to have an effectiveness of about 92% (Planned Parenthood). But in order for the condoms to be effective, men need to use them. In 2001, the average man in sub-Sahara Africa was only using 4.6 condoms per year, while men in countries with the lowest number of AIDS infections were using about 17 condoms per year (avert.org). Although many of the hospitals and clinics in sub-Sahara Africa are trying to distribute condoms to all the tribes, there are several problems that are preventing the men from using them.
In a lecture at the Pacific Club, Honolulu, 2005, a young African law student, June Arunga, spoke about some of the cultural confusion regarding the use of condoms. In a documentary entitled “The Devil’s Footpath”, written by Ms. Arunga, and produced by the Insight TV News, Ltd. for the BBC in 2004, she explores these cultural difficulties in interviews with the tribesmen. According to Ms. Arunga, there are still many tribes all over Africa who continue to practice the traditions of their ancestors, including certain tribal dances, marriages, and the use of witch doctors for medical remedies. But the witch doctors are much more that just tribal doctors, they are also regarded as supernatural, spiritual authorities, and their opinions carry a lot of weight with the tribe. Ms. Arunga learned that 80% of the tribes people would turn to the witch doctor before seeking help from a medical doctor. Ms. Arunga also discovered, after talking with tribes members, that the witch doctors have rituals that are allegedly able to diagnose people with HIV/AIDS. There is also a superstitious procedure that cleanses the AIDS virus from infected tribes members. This procedure costs them $1,600, which more money than they make in three months. Many of the witch doctors in those tribes believe that condoms are evil, and that it is the condom itself that is spreading the disease (The Devils Footpath). The witch doctors are telling the tribes that it is the white people in the hospitals who put the virus on the condoms, in order to infect, and kill the African people. With this kind of misinformation coming from the respected and feared religious leaders of these African tribes is it any wonder that the AIDS pandemic is totally out of control?
In Zambia, they tried to promote the practice of having fewer partners in sex, and using condoms more often. This brought the number of AIDS cases in urban men and women from 28.3% down to 24% (avert.org). This progress would have never happened if people in power (i.e. the president, or the leaders of the AIDS activism) hadn’t started practicing this themselves and promoting the use of condoms. An example of the opposite scenario can be seen in South Africa. The recently impeached Deputy President, Jacob Zuma, and the head of the governments National AIDS Council and the Moral Regeneration Campaign, said in an interview with BBC news that, after having sex with an AIDS-positive woman, he took a shower to “minimize the risk of contracting the disease [AIDS]” (BBC News). As the head of the National AIDS Council, one would expect that Mr. Zuma would know that just taking a shower after sex wasn’t going to minimize his risk of contracting AIDS, and yet this is what he is saying on television. He is himself perpetuating the ignorance that is killing millions of South African people. In a study done by the Oxford World Atlas, it showed that South Africa had the world’s largest number of AIDS infections. And with leadership like Mr. Zuma’s this is hardly a surprise. It is the responsibility of the influential authority figures in Africa to convey a clear, consistent message and example. The multitudes are watching and listening, it is vital that they practice what they preach.
In addition to the cultural misinformation perpetuated by the witch doctor, and the ignorant and irresponsible words and behaviors of AIDS “authorities” in Africa, a new obstacle has been dropped on the path towards AIDS awareness. There is a new censorship code placed on advertisements that will make it difficult to convey, with clarity, the truth about condom use in regard to the prevention of sexually transmitted viruses. The Nigerian Code of Advertising Practice is now going to crack down on advertisements which imply “indecency, or which in any way dramatize, depict, or insinuate a sexual act by use of word, graphics, sound or action” (Irin Plus News). Since condoms are indented for use during sex, the very image of a condom could be “encouraging indecency”. Also, all condom advertisement must carry health warnings (the latex in condoms sometimes cause allergic reactions) and cannot be aired on children’s programs, aired before 8:00 p.m. on radio or television, or displayed on billboards near places of worship, schools and hospitals (Irin Plus News). These new provisions have angered the HIV/AIDS activists, who say that the provisions are counter productive to the success that has been achieved with the condom advertisements. This lack of advertising of a product—the only product—that prevents sexually transmitted infections is a huge set-back to reducing the amount of people getting infected with AIDS.
When more than one third of the population is infected with AIDS, the amount of people in need of hospitalization and treatment is overwhelming. The existing hospitals, clinics, and trained health professionals in Africa are nowhere near adequate to handle the millions of people needing attention, and yet the cost of building and staffing new facilities is staggering. It was estimated that approximately $1.5 billion dollars (American) would be needed to build, staff, and maintain all the hospitals required to address the current demands (avert.org). In what few hospitals they do have in Africa, most of the hospital space is occupied with AIDS patients. The World Bank estimates that all of the hospital beds in Swaziland and Nambia are filled exclusively with AIDS patients. The shortage of beds means that the hospitals are forced to only admit the most severe cases, those who are in the later stages of illness. Unfortunately for everyone, those patients in the advanced stages of AIDS have a greatly reduced chance of recovery, as some Kenyan hospitals have discovered (avert.org), and do not survive, while others, in the earlier stages of the disease, who might seriously benefit from early treatment, cannot be seen or treated. In this situation, hard decisions need to be made. Funds and resources need to be re-allocated so that early-stage AIDS patients get the attention and treatment they need to recover. The survival of a country is at stake and normal hospital triage procedures are not going to save the lives of very many people. As they are operating now, in the midst of this AIDS pandemic, hospitals in Africa are no longer a place where lives are saved, but merely a place for people to die.
According to the Oxford World Atlas, Africa only has three doctors, or assistant doctors for every 100,000 people, this ratio is shockingly low compared to the United State’s ratio of 279 doctors / 100,000 people (the highest ratio belongs to Italy with 554 doctors/ 100,000 people). In a country with millions of virus-infected people, this lack of medical professionals puts an enormous burden on the few doctors they do have. The negative effects of stress on a person’s immune system has been well documented, and if you add to that the constant exposure to AIDS infected people, it is easily understood why the few health professions working in Africa are falling victim to the very disease they are trying to treat. For example, Malawi and Zambia are having a 5 to 6 fold increase in health-worker illness/death (Henry J Kaiser Foundation).
There are obviously no easy answers to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa, but there are some obvious steps that need to be taken, both to inform and educate the population at large, and to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of medical attention. This is not just Africa’s problem; it’s a world problem. We will all be affected in some way, either directly (by exposure to the virus) or indirectly (by the collapse of Africa, and the loss of a culture). People like young Ms. June Arunga, by writing and filming a documentary, and by raising awareness of AIDS in Africa through her lecture circuit all over the world, are taking the responsibility to do their part in this struggle against the killer virus. Accurate information needs to be shared, and censorship in the name of “decency” needs to be suspended so that everyone, young and old alike, can learn the basic truths about what HIV/AIDS are, how they are transmitted, and how people can protect themselves from this devastating infection.
