In South Africa one in four women have AIDS. When you are there it is shocking. So many people are dying from the disease and the same number are getting the disease each year. My main goal was to learn and call attention to some of the things that were happening.
The Go Red for Women campaign raises awareness of the risk of heart disease. I think a lot of people don't realize that heart disease is the number one killer of women. So what we're doing is encouraging women to tell five other women to learn more about heart disease and how they can prevent it.
AIDS is big business, maybe Africa's biggest business. There's nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.
According to the Western model, pregnancy is a disease, menopause is a disease, and even getting pregnant is a disease. Dangerous drugs and devices are given to women, but not to men- just for birth control. I've reached the conclusion that to many doctors BEING A WOMAN IS A DISEASE
People still think of AIDS as a shame-based disease, it's a sexually transmitted disease, and you're either gay or you're a prostitute or an intravenous drug user. And so a lot of people are still very bigoted about this disease. It's such a treatable disease. It's so - the end is in sight for this disease, medically.
HIV/AIDS from converted from a lethal disease into a chronic disease because basic scientists' fundamental research was done that illuminated aspects of that virus and allowed the generation of therapies like antiretroviral therapies. And so now HIV/AIDS is not a lethal disease, it is a chronic disease.
I think that of all the diseases in the world, the disease that all humankind suffers from, the disease that is most devastating to us is not AIDS, it's not gluttony, it's not cancer, it's not any of those things. It is the disease that comes about because we live in ignorance of the wealth of love that God has for us.
I burned out on AIDS and did no AIDS work for a couple of years. I was so angry that people were still getting this disease that nobody can give you - you have to go out and get it!
Many physical illnesses are associated with depression and anxiety, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, stroke, kidney disease, lung disease, dementia and cancer.
People at CDC [Centers for Disease Control] who cut their teeth on diseases over the last 10 years have started to think of crime as another disease, and using some of these same concepts. It was something that was in the air in that world, but it was time to bust it out and apply it to any number of different social epidemics.
In 1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy. Within months, his army collapsed and fled. It was routed not by the Italian army but by a microbe. A mysterious new disease spread through sex killed many of Charles’s soldiers and left survivors weak and disfigured. French soldiers spread the disease across much of Europe, and then it moved into Africa and Asia. Many called it the French disease. The French called it the Italian disease. Arabs called it the Christian disease. Today, it is called syphilis.
And now South Africa has finally woken up and it is doing great things. And if South Africa becomes the template to what AIDS is in the sub-Saharan continent, then all the other countries are going to follow suit. And Michel Sidibe, who spoke at the breakfast meeting this morning, was saying that there is so much hope for Africa now that South Africa has got its house in order.
What happened in the 80's was that all the men died of AIDS. That was a particularly depressing time because so many people passed away and it was a very desperate and lonely time, so I think a lot of people felt that we were somehow, unreceived. Not only by the disease but also by the public image of the disease. It really gave homophobia a real shot in the arm and changed the way people viewed gays, queers. It became an entirely different atmosphere.
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory.
Four hundred thousand South Africans are dying of AIDS every year. This makes the war on Iraq look like a birthday party.
I made some friends at Listerine and they taught me a little bit about oral care. That half of adults suffer from oral disease, that the number one chronic disease among children is oral disease, that we're only taking care of 25% of our mouths when brushing alone and there are more germs in your mouth than there are people on the planet.
In the years of the Reagan-Bush administration alone, about 1.5 million people were killed by South Africa just in the surrounding countries. Forget what was happening in South Africa and Namibia.