New Term: "Bug Chasers"

Have you heard about the latest insanity?: "Bug Chasers" are men and women who hop from sexual partner to sexual partner hoping to catch AIDS!  Unbelievable! Yet a nurse from a large hospital tells me this is the latest 'fad.'  To be sure, those who engage in this have never seen those dying from AIDS.

Clarification:  "AIDS" is the disease; what they 'catch' is the HIV virus.  "AIDS" stands for acquired immune deficiency disease.  "HIV" stands for human immunodeficiency virus.  Once a person is infected through blood or bodily fluids, it takes about 6 weeks to come down with symptoms that may feel like the flu.  Then the virus hides in your body, increases in numbers, and, in the process, greatly decreases your body cells that fight infection.  Sound horrible?  People with age suffer from terrible infections which will ultimately kill them.  There is NO PREVENTIVE VACCINE for AIDS.  THERE IS NO CURE FOR AIDS.

The reason I'm bringing this to my blog is that when I heard this term, I checked for up-to-the-minute statistics: 35,000,000+ are infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide.  What I find very disturbing is: 1 in 4 new HIV infections occur between the ages of 13 to 24.  13!!  Please, talk with your young children and/or grandchildren!  Tell them that the ONLY way to NOT risk getting HIV/AIDS is to NOT HAVE SEX until they get married (and be careful who you marry!)

Whenever I hear or read that "protected sex" will prevent HIV/AIDS, I cringe.  It will NOT prevent it!  Also tell the young ones that just because a person looks wholesome and clean, doesn't mean that they are not infected with HIV/AIDS.  A person can be infected with it and not have the symptoms and not have enough of the virus (newly infected) to even show up on an AIDS test!

It used to be - and undoubtedly still is - that some of the people infected with HIV/AIDS didn't tell those they had sex with that they were infected because then they might not have sex with them.  And, also, there were those who purposely infected others.  EVIL!!!

One dying AIDS patient of mine, when I was still a nursing student in the early 1990's, told me, "I wish I had never done the things I did when I was young."  He was only 38 years old.

Too late is too late!  We can't ignore these realities!  But we CAN arm our young people (and those who are not-so-young) with the facts.

Our Lord, we would like our world and our lives and our families to be lovely and perfect.  Help us be strong and never sweep unpleasant or deadly realities under the rug of our cowardice!  We know You will give us the words to say if we but ask.