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HIV-positive teen denied admission to Pennsylvania school
- Thread starter Gaborn
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you have the twisted cases like these
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/man-tried-to-spread-hiv/story-e6frf7kx-1111117070487
chickdigger802
Banned
planar1280
Banned
If the Kid gets into school and he infects another student, who will be responsible? the kids parents or the private school. Also because Milton Hershey provides medical /dental/orthodontic care, clothing, housing, food, and education for FREE, would they be then responsible for the HIV treatment for the child infected? Would the School have to start paying for HIV treatment for the kid so the parents would not have to pay anything?
How about just any kid that might have the flu, or people with Hepatitis, and they better be screening kids for lice daily, those fuckers can carry disease too. Also, any teachers over 50 better be checked for shingles, they can spread the virus that causes them and chickenppox.
This is actually more interesting than it appears at first glance. The ADA makes an exception, as I understand it, if someone poses a direct threat to others in regards to a disability or illness. The school operates like a boarding school, K-12, and children live together in houses on campus year-round. This is the crux of the whole argument about an exception. I don't think it can be argued that an HIV+ person having sex can potentially transmit the disease, regardless of medication. The exact odds of this happening or the specific circumstances that promote or discourage the transmission certainly can be argued. The school, in making its determination, has to weigh the needs of this child against the responsibility they have to the other 2,000 students in looking after their health and well being.
This seems like a pretty unique or at least uncommon situation. I don't know if there is a clear right or wrong decision.
This seems like a pretty unique or at least uncommon situation. I don't know if there is a clear right or wrong decision.
planar1280
Banned
If the kid is enrolled then the school will provide essentially free healthcare to the kid and if another student gets infected, their treatment too
Except that there is no cure for this disease, save for injecting liquid cash of course.
Pretty sure they are not stupid enough to not have a pre existing condition clause, otherwise cancer patients would be lined up around the block to get in.
A lot of it is the leftover mentality from the 80s/90s that being HIV+ means being part of the gay community.
Read some forums where people discuss the issue. It's sickening.
Hoya Destroyer
Member
I would side with the school on this one.
As terrible as it is that one kid has HIV, it would be that much worse if another were to pick it up from him, no matter how unlikely that occurance may be.
As terrible as it is that one kid has HIV, it would be that much worse if another were to pick it up from him, no matter how unlikely that occurance may be.
Weasel words, yay! No matter how unlikely? Shit, close the school. It would be worse if a kid was to go on a murderous rampage, no matter how unlikely that would be!
chaostrophy
Member
Are you fucking kidding me? Is this 1985?
Zoe
Member
There was a pregnant girl in my 7th grade class over 15 years ago.
Seriously. I can't believe the amount of people who are supporting this discrimination.
I think it's important people understand why this scenario presents a much different set of considerations than most. A normal school has children showing up in the morning and leaving in the afternoon. For a portion of the day the children are the responsibility of the school, and during this time the kids are in class. In this case, the school has children living there all year. Free time is spent with other students during which all are still the responsibility of the school. This difference is key and at least presents the possibility for sane, realistic arguments on either side of the issue.
QuiteWhittle
Member
These days? Teenagers aren't having more sex now over any other generation. Infact, they are actually fucking less(much less).
Does this mean the school should close down during an outbreak of the flu, or make sure every single student and teacher is checked for influenza and when the alarm goes off they suspend them until the illness is over?
Give me a break. Influenza kills up to 40,000 people (though that heavily fluctuates) in the United States every year, 10K-20K (pg7) more than AIDS does in North America as a whole. Where are the discrimination cases for people who have a strain of the flu?
This is nothing more than stupid paranoia and a lack of true understanding about the disease. In fact, it could be a decent precursor to accept the student and begin a yearly school-wide lesson about the facts and effects of contracting HIV.
The ONLY reason I could understand is if someone is on their death bed (last stages of cancer etc), and decide to have unprotected sex with HIV+ people for the hell of it.
Oh for christ sake. The flu isn't a lifelong disease. It kills the already weak and older people. HIV is a death sentence unless your rich.
HIV will eventually kill you and it can't be treated, unlike the flu, HPV, Hepatitis, and most other contagious diseases. Once you have it, there's really nothing that can be done. Comparing it with chicken pox, shingles, etc, is dubious at best.
Middle School is about right on the dot for puberty. 12-14 etc.
You'll eventually get banned for life from life, and can't create a new account like you can on XBL when you get banned for being in an infection lobby.
Just like Gaëtan Dugas who greeted his victims in the morning with words like: "I've got gay cancer. I'm going to die and so are you"
You should conduct a study.
AIDs is not the death sentence it once was. You'll spend a ridiculous amount of money taking drugs for the rest of your life, but the days of death in a decade are over. A person could expect to live 32 years after infection with retroviral therapy, possibly more, possibly less, depending on how early it was caught.
Rabbit Lord
Member
This is a silly statment, AIDS/HIV is no longer a death sentence with proper medical care/supervision. With that said I understand the school's position, I'm assuming they got pressure from the parents/donors and right or wrong they made a decision based on their bottom line. I hope though they didn't expect this just to blow over, they would have to assume some controversy would come of this.
You mean underprivileged kids. The Hershey School is a boarding school for extremely poor children. You don't know what you're talking about.
On topic: I don't think this is right. They shouldn't be making an exception for HIV, unless they don't want to cover the medical bills for other communicable disease or bar entrance due to safety concerns for diseases like that are incurable and life-threatening.
No, I live in 2011 with a RN wife who works in a poor community hospital and sees HIV/AIDS patients frequently. Unless you have a LOT of money it's a death sentence.
edit: Although I guess technically, per my wife, you'll probably die of pneumonia or another sickness because your immune system is fucked.....but stil the root cause is HIV/AIDS and it is still a death sentence unless your very rich.
Even then, if it's caught between the ages of 11-14 that's almost halving your life expectancy, and possibly reducing the life expectancy of any children you may have. It's a huge, huge risk to take, and that's just assuming you're able to afford the medication.
Ghost_Protocol
Member
Are you guys serious? The average person has no fucking idea that HIV/AIDs isn't a deadly disease anymore. I sure as hell didn't know, and I'm a science/news/media junkie. I also didn't know that having unprotected sex with an HIV+ person who's on medication posed virtually zero risk of transmission. No one hears the word "AIDS" and equates it with something like diabetes, as Anderson Cooper implied. The word "AIDs" triggers Africa, Gays, or Death in most people's minds, and I'm shocked that so many of you guys think otherwise.
Ask your friends and family if they knew AIDs stopped being a deadly disease in America, or that it was safe to have sex with a HIV+ person as long as they're on meds.
Expecting people to know otherwise is like expecting them to know how evolution works.
Well like some of you have said, it is a private institution so they can do what they want. Having an HIV kid might affect their "image" and parents might pull their kids from the school too.
It is quite a shameful discrimination though.
At the same time, could he really infect other kids if he wanted? I'm asking this as an honest question as medicine is not the science I'm best at.
Kids can be quite insane these days. Two weeks ago some teens sprayed the neighbors' kid with hair spray and threw some matches at him. The kid was lucky to be able to remove his shirt because it caught on fire really quickly. All of this happened at the high school in the small city I live in.
So if it's possible to infect others maybe he could do it?
It is quite a shameful discrimination though.
At the same time, could he really infect other kids if he wanted? I'm asking this as an honest question as medicine is not the science I'm best at.
Kids can be quite insane these days. Two weeks ago some teens sprayed the neighbors' kid with hair spray and threw some matches at him. The kid was lucky to be able to remove his shirt because it caught on fire really quickly. All of this happened at the high school in the small city I live in.
So if it's possible to infect others maybe he could do it?
Per your first point, that's crap. Barring an accident, you will die before your time. Maybe not in a year, maybe not in 10 years, but it will be before you would have died if you didn't have it.
Per your second point, do you really want to take that chance?
I'm HIV positive. I don't need a lesson in the disease or a lecture from the likes of you. I'm certainly not what one would term rich, but will agree that if you don't have semi-decent health insurance it can certainly be difficult, but one needn't be a millionaire to get effective treatment in this day and age (so long as you're not in the third world).
As to life expectancy, my doctor - who's been working with the disease since the 80s - would disagree with you, and I personally know people who have been living with HIV for 20+ years, and not a single one of them is rich either. The effective treatments we have now have only been around since the mid-1990s so obviously long term side effects aren't as well understood as they could be, but nowadays you're far more likely to start worrying about traditional problems people get when they age simply because - surprise, you're actually living long enough to get them. I'm far more likely to have problems from my high blood pressure as I age - a hereditary condition I also take medication for and a condition I had well before I was HIV positive - than anything stemming directly from HIV.
Ghost_Protocol
Member
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Anderson Cooper did a big segment on this story yesterday or today where he and his guests claimed that AIDs wasn't AT ALL deadly in America anymore, that AIDs is comparable to diabetes now, and that both of those things should be common knowledge.
I was saying that there's no way in hell that's true, and expecting people to understand the progress that's been made with AIDs is like asking them to understand the progress that's been made with evolution. Nobody freaking knows anything about either.
Look, I wish you all the best. I don't want to come off as heartless so I won't debate this with you. I hope you live a long and fulfilling life, I really do.
edit: Do you live in the US?
Um HIV+ doctors shouldn't do anything but research. You don't want an HIV+ anybody poking around inside you. Too risky, even if the risk is low, you want to avoid risk when dealing with sick people.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
I did it! The time machine worked!!
Well, maybe my perspective is skewed from my wife's position. She deals with HIV+/AIDS patients all of the time and I have seen some of the worst cases when visiting her at work. They are basically shells of a person. Full grown people that weigh less than 70 pounds. Maybe it's because of the economic class she deals with, but in her line of work it is very much a death sentence. On the flip side, maybe she only sees the ones who are dying? She doesn't see the ones who are living with the disease? IDK, honestly.
Just thinking about my child, due in April, I don't know if I would be OK with them being in the same situation as laid out in the OP.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
Vhshdrisbd
Bugchasing. look it up.
For those of you who said fuck the school, ask yourself this question, and only if you already have kids.
Would you let your kids live in that boarding school, living with an HIV+ kid, knowing what kids do etc
the dude's rich...how do you think he's manage to live so long? he can afford it.
The parents that send their kids to this school...probably most likely cannot.
Would you let your kids live in that boarding school, living with an HIV+ kid, knowing what kids do etc
the dude's rich...how do you think he's manage to live so long? he can afford it.
The parents that send their kids to this school...probably most likely cannot.
more than a million people are living with HIV in the US. Now, the country has more than 300 million people, but you basically have 1 out of every 300 people living with HIV. That's a rather big number.
I bet I know multiple individuals with HIV. Thing is, unless you're exchanging needles with someone or having sex with them, there's literally a 0% chance of you getting the disease from them. You're just as likely to lose your pinky finger by being friends with someone with only 4 fingers on 1 hand as you are to get HIV from any contact that could occur on a simple friendship level. Hugging, using the same bathroom, shaking hands, fuck, sharing food and drinks can't spread it.
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