Re: This has gone too far....

The Watcher wrote: 
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 16:47:59 -0500, Elmo <DoNoSpam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


The Watcher wrote:

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 13:17:46 -0500, Elmo <DoNoSpam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Janet Baraclough wrote:


The message <43a84afd.1199095@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

from Don'tgo@xxxxxxxxx (The Watcher) contains these words: 




I've noticed that AIDS is the only disease to come along in which the victim
gets blamed for getting it.



 Well, no. In the past, people were blamed for going mad, and for
having epilepsy. Both were said, by the Christian church, to be evidence
of sexual depravity, and punishments from god for sin.  Nothing much has
changed, it seems.

Don't forget lung cancer. 


Lung cancer isn't a punishment. It's a direct consequence of putting
cancer-causing chemicals into your body.

(snip)

Not in all cases.
Yes, smoking causes cancer.
Yes, asbestos causes mesothelioma.
Many things are known to cause CA in lung tissue.
Sometimes people with no known risk factors end up wih CA.
Your statement about direct consequence exemplifies the fact that this is another disease where there is a tendency to blame the victim for having put cancer-causing chemicals into their body. 


There is more than a tendency among the holier-than-thou crowd to blame the gays
for getting AIDS, though. They just flat out crow about how those sinful
homosexuals deserve AIDS, and how it's a direct consequence of homosexual
behavior.

And how! I can remember when AIDs was an obscure article in Science -- all they had done at that time was to describe the syndrome and only a short time later the televangelistas were calling it "GOD'S judgement on homoSEXuals!" Find a copy of "And the Band Played On" and read about how inaction by almost every level of government delayed the investigations, and later the dissemination of information about its mode of transmission. It wasn't until a good Christian hemophiliac contracted the disease that it was seen as anything but a "gay plague".

BTW, I realize that not ALL lung cancer is a result of smoking. Lung cancer was
around before smoking was.

And in the bizzaro world in which we live the connection between cigarettes and lung diseases of all stripes was fought tooth and nail by the tobacco industry.

I trust that when the next global pandemic arrives (be it influenza or something not yet identified) there will be those who blame the victims for having failed to wear the proper 3M-Velostat adorned headgear -- or whatever action they deem the moral way to prevent whatever happens.


--
"It used to just be CIA agents with ear-pieces who walked round
with preoccupied, faraway expressions, and consequently regarded
all the little people as irrelevant scum."
Lynne Truss
.

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