I once spoke to a student who went to Africa (forgot the country name, I think it’s Kenya) as a peacecorp member. Her main responsibility was to educate your women about the risks and prevention of HIV infection. She was surprised that those religious people attributed the plague of HIV infection to the God. They kept on asking the question: “Is HIV infection the God’s intention to punish us?” They believed that they didn’t do anything wrong. But why this happened to them?

It is indeed true that most HIV infected African women didn’t do anything wrong. They were the victims of their husbands’ sin. In most developing countries, men worked in cities to make a living where their sex behaviors were unrestrained. The occasional retreats gave their wives and their children disasters—HIV infection.

Well, blaming the God may be a blasphemy. Then whom else can one blame? A recent study conducted by Rand Corp and Oregon State U revealed that among African American in the US, a large number of them believed that it was the government scientists who spread the HIV among them. However, this didn’t surprise me. The conspiracy theory of HIV has lingered in the black population for a long time. This data just confirmed it.

Although this seemed absurd, the conspiracy theory significantly hindered the distribution of government help. The beliefs that drug companies are using them as guinea pigs to test new drugs and the government is reluctant to help them result in hostility among those with HIV infection. Everybody can guess the consequences from this hostility.

Fortunately, most of us are not so blinded to science. We know that HIV somehow jumped from monkeys to human beings more than 20 years ago. One can contract HIV infection mainly by having unsafe sex with HIV carriers, by transfusing contaminated blood products, or by sharing syringes during illegal drug uses. Mothers can also transmit HIV to their children (vertical transmission). It may take years from HIV infection to AIDS. There are three types of drugs now which can control virus replications and bring back CD4 cells–T helper cells in our immune system. The vaccine development is also on the way. We should remain optimistic that in the near future, we will conquer this disease.