The ironies of AIDS are incredible. Until a few years ago, we were struggling along “just” trying to come up with a cure (cures) for cancer, when suddenly the struggle became a science-fiction nightmare no one would have believed possible: an infectious disease that causes cancer, spread both sexually and intravenously. And yet while the problem itself has grown, the scientific advances toward a solution have also been progressing in an incredibly short period of time—identification of an etiologic organism followed by a blood test indicating exposure in just a few years.
If we could consider the scientific advances alone, we could all stand around and justifiably congratulate ourselves. But of course, the advances are overshadowed by the disease itself. Will a vaccine be available in 3 to 5 years? A cure in 5 to 10? Will we ultimately cure cancer in curing AIDS? Or will we see a new “Darwinian selection” of the biologically fittest?
To get to the year 2000, we will have to continue to set aside nuclear weapons, effectively balance the world population with the world food supply, and cure or control AIDS and any similar new disease that may develop. To get to 1987, those of us who deal with medical emergencies daily will have to treat the complications of AIDS with the medications and antibiotics available, counsel our patients as best we can, reassure the public to the limits of current scientific knowledge, and neither panic ourselves nor become complacent in handling the needles and biological material that are part of everyday patient care.
It almost makes one long for the “good old days” of the 1970s, when aids were aids and the practice of medicine seemed so much simpler.
—Neal Flomenbaum, MD, New York