Little Hawk, the immune system fails BECAUSE of the virus, not the other way around, although an already weakened immune system will likely speed the devastation of HIV. Viruses aren't symptoms. A person's body doesn't create them as a reaction to something else.

There have been too many people who were healthy when they became sick and the HIV virus who later became sick and died. That 'unhealthy lifestyle' general-purpose theory, whether it's because of people's choices or was imposed by society, is based on belief, not evidence. It makes about as much sense (and is starting to sound very similar to me) as saying "God is punishing them," and yes, I've had enough of beating my fists against a brick wall by talking to them, too. They, and you, can't explain the babies, the medical people who've accidentally been stuck with infected needles, the athletes, other than "well, I'm sure it must have been something!" Trying to make the evidence you have (or don't have) fit your theories rather than basing your theories on facts just doesn't make any sense at all, and blaming a disease, caused by a virus, on an unhealthy lifestyle or poverty, is just another kind of bigotry. On one hand, people say "all of those people fuck like bunnies." On the other hand, you say "all of those people are starving and don't take care of themselves." Neither one of those things applies to AIDS victims everywhere. Not only that, but how do you explain the loads of poor, unhealthy people who don't have AIDS.

The disease doesn't give a rat's ass what your politial beliefs are. You may be sick of 'right-wing mantras'. What I'm sick of is people who have to see millions of people dying as a political issue. I don't suppose it makes much of a difference to those people, unless it affects funding for prevention programs or drugs. But they don't need those things, do they Bobert? You and all those other people who see this as a political or a moral issue have agendas which have nearly nothing to do with science or medicine.