Lonewolf Diaries: Celebrities Love AIDS and Breasts…Hate The Prostate

Maybe an enlarged prostrate , say 38 DD, with an immunodeficient slant would get you a (fill in color) ribbon, a footrace, and a 12 billion dollar grant would help. Or you could get sick in Africa, have Geo Bush save you and no one would ever know.

Steven, AIDS is hilarious. Just take it from my father, who received it through a blood transfusion back in the 80s when it wasn't mandatory for hospitals to check their blood supply, then died leaving my mom a widow, having to raise 2 boys.

ALS is definitely something I want to see people talk about more often.

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, too. My older brother has juvenile-type diabetes and my dad has PKD. A friend of ours died of breast cancer that spread to the rest of her body (a few years after her son died of Leukemia). My dad has been on dialysis for 14 years, now, and he's the favorite cranky say-it-like-it-is patient at the dialysis clinic. He has a sense of humor about it, and you have to. The hardest thing for me, right now, is living so far away from my parents and hearing about my dad needing a wheelchair to get around now. He takes an eternal view of things, though. Nothing is wasted when we unite our sufferings with those of Christ.

I think breast cancer gets attention and funding because it's a predominately women's disease that the feminists can get behind and march for. They like nothing more than a cause that allows them a banner and a march. AIDS is Hollywood friendly because the celebrities can go to Africa and have a photo-op with all the poor children who have been orphaned by the disease. The best way to get funding for disease research is to find a way to combine photo-ops with a cause.

Yes, but AIDS is rampant among a population near and dear to liberal Hollywood's heart: gay men.

My father died of a massive heart attack…and my oldest brother died recently of complications due to diabetes. Both diseases are more prevalent than AIDS has ever been or I believe will ever be here in the West and yet here we are….what about a U2 song about a man working hard his whole life, and dying of a heart attack before his first grandkid is born? What about the robbery in that? I guess its not worth it? What about the young people who die too young of heart disease every day? What? Oh I get it it doesn't matter.

I'm laughing out loud! Well said! Brilliant!

I believe P. J. O'Rourke once said that diarrheoa kills more people than AIDS but you don't see celebrities wearing brown ribbons.

My prayers go out to your friend, Steven. I agree with everyone else, there are so many other things that need attention, money for research, cures, etc., both deadly diseases and lifelong conditions. Some of those lifelong conditions may not cause deaths themselves, but they do cause suicides. When confronted with the fact that you are going to have a terribly debilitating condition for the rest of your life, your world comes crashing down and knowing that its never going to get better makes one seriously contemplate hastening the end.

I don't understand. At what point did he insinuate that AIDS is funny?

"Eat right, work out, die anyway!"

Yeah, but usually not nearly as quickly…; – )

I completely agree and would like to mention something no one else has so far. Mental health disorders receive almost no attention. Maybe that is because nobody really know how painful and traumatic they can be. Full disclosure, I am affected by one of these disorders. I don't think people are educated enough about mental disorders despite the prevalence and severity of many of them.

"Cancer is no laughing matter. AIDS on the other hand, can be hilarious" THAT'S when he said AIDS was hilarious. It's obviously not, and I seriously doubt that Steven actually considers AIDS to be funny, but he does downplay the horror of AIDS, (" insignificance on the fatality radar and the fact that in the industrialized world it’s entirely preventable. AIDS doesn’t just “happen” to you here in the U.S.A. You sort of have to seek out those high risk…activities.") saying that it's basically your own fault, which is a bit TOO offensive from my point of view.

"Prostates just don’t have that kind of pull."
Now THAT'S funny.

I'm sure you're right. So far, Steven's articles and videos have been edgy humor. So far, I haven't seen any indication that he's a hater. I'm sure there were plenty of people who "just didn't get" that in the "Rent" spoof either.

DFTT

I just LOVE having a rare disease people joke about-Celiac Disease. Which is present in at least 20% of type 1 diabetics. Bet you did not know that….right now I think Celiac gets less funding than Posh spends on shoes. Although many trendy Hollywood types avoid wheat in an eating disordered kind of way….

err, I actually had to google 'DFTT'

Yep. I just Googled it. Now that I know I stole it, I'm going to stop using it. ANDREW: If you're reading this, don't zap me when I stop using DFTT. Maybe I'll try DFTFT. I'll leave it to your imagination what the extra F stands for. But I'll Google it first, just to make sure somebody didn't get there ahead of me.

heart disease is still the leading killer in the United States – fortunately, organizations such as the American Heart Association are working hard to secure funds for the fight against heart disease and stroke. Heart disease kills more women over the age of 20 than the next 5 leading causes of death combined…that is frightening…..

but it wasn't meant as a tip, it was more of a self indictment pertaining to my internet savvy (or lack thereof)…

I didn't know what BFF was until a certain Kotex commercial came on during Rock of Love

Damn Law, it took me a month to figure out what potus means and now this? Can I buy a vowel?

Sounds like me pretending to know what my military friends meant when they said something was "fubar." We didn't have Google or "slang" dictionaries back then. I sure wasn't about to show my unsophisticated innocence by asking. I was just a lamb lost in the woods.

Any and every disease is heartbreaking for the person who has it and their family and friends. But without knowing exact number's each disease research funding they get. I wont agree totally…. just yet. Although I do see what he is saying about how celebs are only getting funds for certain diseases and not all. Why does one get more attention than the other. And as far as HIV/AIDS goes.. well in MOST cases it can be preventable although those who get it from unprotected sex. They really can't blame anyone but themselves. At least not here in the USA, for crying out loud kids are getting taught earlier and earlier in age about sex, std's and prevention. I had to get a blood transfusion in 96.. I was scared to death of getting AIDs (no pun intended) but I was blessed .. here now 13 yrs later, no HIV or AIDS. Maybe it will take a male celeb to get prostate cancer to get more awareness… maybe not.

Why is anyone surprised by this? America is a country where women have higher status than men. Men are second class citizens in America, receiving treatment on par with what blacks received under Jim Crow laws.

Also, AIDS is a gay disease, which is why celebrities like it so much.

I'm going to nominate lung cancer as the big loser with the emphasis on breasts. It's got a vaguely similar potential for progress as BC, because it is, at present, appallingly deadly almost entirely, it seems, because we have no good ways to detect and characterize it early enough that you can simply chop out a chunk of lung and go on. Spiral CT has been very disappointing — but that doesn't mean radiology is a dead-end. Furthermore, it strongly suggests gene-typing, like they do with BC these days, is a promising research route. Maybe we can find some kind of blood-borne marker to catch the evil early.

Lung cancer survival rates, that five year thingy, are about 15%, versus up in the 80% range for BC. If we could move lung cancer to the BC range, that would be something like 125,000 lives a year.

No doubt part of it is the stigma of smoking. The ALA breezily asserts that 90% of all lung cancer is caused by smotking, but I question the ability of anyone to really know this number, absent a detailed mechanism for lung carcinogenesis (and if we had that, we'd probably have a real cure, too). Seems likely to be a bit of exaggeration to bolster anti-smoking initiatives. Unfortunately, I suspect people naively believe that if everyone simply stopped smoking, there'd be hardly any lung cancer left. That's not going to happen. And even if lung cancer rates fell by 50%, a huge change, that would still be 80,000 deaths a year.

Oh poor baby…
Men are second class citizens? Give. Me. A . Pharking. Break. Men have been the dominant sex since the beginning of time. So women may be getting treated a little better – so what? Considering how much shit they've had to put up with from us males I couldn't care less.

Go cry in your pillow. I hope you're being sarcastic because if you're not – I hope you never, ever get a girlfriend. I pity the poor misguided women who would end up with someone with such a skewed view.

I'd have to agree not taking AIDS lightly that there is quite a disproportionate amount of funding for it. The last I had heard about it, it was treatable in the states. I watched a Penn and Teller show about breast cancer awareness and fund drives, Walk for the Cure. One lady was particularity upset that a majority of the funding for the walk went in to having the walk. While it was a great way to raise awareness the walks themselves didn't raise any funds.

Having sex with random strangers in a bath house is a right!

In Steven's defense- no, AIDS is not funny, but it's no longer the disease it was in the 80's. Thirty years ago HIV was a death sentence, and the technology wasn't there to easily screen it from the blood supply. Today, you almost have to go looking for it, and even if you become infected the available drugs will keep HIV from becoming full-blown AIDS almost indefinitely. And even if you are engaging in high-risk activity like IV drug use or wanton promiscuity without getting regular tests and you do end up with AIDS proper, the drugs available (harsh though they may be) will extend your life expectancy 20, 30 years, or longer. And chances are you don't even have to pay for them. Even babies born to HIV+ mothers can avoid any infection if the mom is on the meds. The only people left to have any sympathy for are the ones married to or living with someone behaving this recklessly. In which case, you can probably see it coming there too, barring willful blindness. There really just is no excuse for getting AIDS today.

Having said all that, please accept my siincere condolences, Mr. Tramer.

A portion of the diabetes is attributable to being overweight and is preventable. Please folks, get your facts straight. As we all can see, probably the biggest health risk in America today is obesity and it is preventable in almost all cases by self discipline. This is why I'm against socialized medicine unless it is accompanied by mandatory government checked diet and daily exercise for those over weight.

"It is highly unlikely to catch the HIV from women."

Not quite true. It's a regional thing. In the US and western europe, heterosexual transmission is one of the lesser paths of infection, yes. But in many less developed countries, where the disease is endemic, it is by far the more common route – due to a combination of cultural resistance to condom use and a thriving prostitution industry.

Of course, Hollywood and the government only wants to talk about "fun" diseases/sarc.
I think the group of diseases that gets some of the worst coverage is intestinal diseases (IBD) like Krohns, or in my case, Ulcerative Colitis. The symptoms are so gross that no one wants to talk about them and there isn't a great slogan you can make out of it.
It's frustrating because the diseases that get funding are the "clean" ones that people can get up and describe without making their audience nauseous. Never mind that the people worst affected by IBD are usually young people (13-25), if the issue isn't about sex, you won't hear about it. I'm glad AIDS research is doing well because if the US doesn't do the research, Europe sure ain't doing it and there are a lot of people outside the West who don't have the ability to avoid this disease. But I really wish they would grow up and realize there are more problems than AIDS and breast cancer.

That said, the farther Sean Penn stays away from anything related to me, the happier I am.

Yes, you aren't a REAL GAY unless you have AIDS. LOL. Seriously, I saw a gay man at the 07 NYC AIDS walk inject himself with blood infected w AIDS, at least that is what he wanted us to think. He made a big symbolic show of it. Pathetic. I wanted to barf and go home. I'll never give another dollar to AIDS again.

that is not completely true. i am overweight and that is in large part because i have a disease the makes my body store fat first and provide energy second. not all obesity problems are caused by a simply lack of self-discipline.

There's that, and there's also the fact that a disease that occurs up your ass is far more distressing to think about than one that occurs inside your chest.

I worked in a hospital when AIDS cases were first coming to the attention of the USA population. My colleagues and I had direct, hands on contact with the AIDS patients with very little direction on how to do so safely. In fact, I was on a task force where we drafted the hospital's first universal body fluids precaution practice. The apocalyptic predictions of the AIDS threat to the general population — made by the early AIDS patients' advocates — scared the hell out of all of us. In time we learned to take what they said with a healthy dose of skepticism. Hardly any of their positions and statements turned out to be true. But what was striking to me was that those advocates would seemingly spend 90% of their time and dollars trying to scare the general population and prevent "discrimination" to the patients. Then they would dedicate the remainder on the prevention of the disease with those who were most likely to be affected.

continued…

Who do you think would have a better chance to jump out of the way of that bus:
a reasonably thin agile jogger, or an out of shape fat slob (think Michael Moore)?

Any questions?

P.S. I've played both roles during the course of my life, and know whereof I speak…; – )

You'd think Sean Penn would be concerned with the plight of those with your condition or Krohns. After all one of the symptoms of those things are something he suffers from himself, all be it from the other end.

Kem, I know that such a disease as you mention exist. However, for the vast majority of people the rate at which we burn calories is close to normal. (Sorry, I don't remember the actual variance and I could not find it easily) In controlled experiments where the eating habits or overweight people were actually monitored by observation it was found that "overweight" people eat more than "normal" people. Yet when those some people self reported there intake the numbers were very similar.

So while I don't doubt that you have a fairly rare medical condition that causes you to have more problems than most people in maintaining a healthy weight I just want to point out that such a condition is the exception and not the rule.

Regards

True. Sickening, but true.

A friend of mine who lost her mother-in-law to breast cancer a few years ago said that if men got breast cancer, there would be a cure. I pointed out that men get prostate cancer and not only isn't there a cure, there is nowhere near as much funding per diagnosed case or per death as there is for breast cancer. She didn't have much to say after that.

I have lost friends and family members to AIDS, many different cancers, diabetes, and a host of other diseases. My uncle is a prostate cancer survivor. My maternal aunt is a breast cancer survivor (which also puts me at higher risk for the disease). So I, like many people, have a personal interest in research for many of these diseases. It sickens me to see funding meted out based on politics and false perceptions.

Not to mention the fact that more women are available during the weekdays to march, protest and lobby. Just sayin'.

Not really true, even for Type II (adult onset). You have to have a prediliction for that to go diabetic.

For Type I (juvenile onset), totally untrue.

These are two different diseases, and uncontrollable causes are behind both.

Nathan, you’re close. It is not those who have sickle-cell, but the “carriers” who have one SC gene and one normal gene, who have improved resistance to malaria. Were it not for this positive effect, it would be a very rare disease.

On average a quarter of the children of two carriers have SC, half are carriers, and the remaining quarter have normal genes. Without modern medicine, that quarter born with two SC genes have little chance to survive long enough to reproduce, but the carriers have an advantage over the non-carriers in areas with high incidence of malaria. And that is why SC is virtually unknown in ethnic groups that have no history in such areas.

You said it. While AIDS and breast cancer have been the squeaky wheels, heart disease continues to be the #1 killer in the U.S.. In fact, women are FAR more likely to die from a heart attack or stroke than from breast cancer. I’m not trying to downplay the awfulness of breast cancer; I’ve known people who have died from it. But I’d like to see more attention paid to prostate cancer (completely survivable if detected in time), cardiovascular disease, and the alarming rise in diabetes. I’d like to see more research into pancreatic cancer, which kills 95% of its victims within five years. Or into lung cancer, which is afflicting more and more non-smokers.

AIDS is terrible, but it is also 100% preventable.

And preliminary test for breast cancer is much more fun to do than the one for prostate – and it doesn't involve a stinky latex glove.

Although in both situations, it's advisable to warm your hands.

I am also tired of diseases being politicized. They have a new ad campaign out now about women and heart disease. It's as though if only men were affected, it would not be worth curing. We need to put the money where is will help the most people regardless of gender or politics.

Has anyone suggested a color for the prostate cancer awareness ribbon?
I'd like to suggest a cloudy yellow.

I'll buy him a box of Hot Now Krispy Kremes. (They've got branches in Korea, but not Wisconsin. Sometimes I miss NC…)

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