AIDS: A Well-Known Virus In Our Society

AIDS has become a very well known virus in our society. While a big chunk of our population is almost frightened by someone with this life threatening disease, a lot of people are becoming educated and more accepting of AIDS. Many people believed AIDS was only caught if a person was a homosexual. Many of these factors has split our society as a whole due to judgment and fear. There is a shocking amount of people who are not properly educated on AIDS. In the movie Philadelphia Andrew Beckett, a man who is diagnosed with AIDS, goes from being respected and loved to being outcasted and hated by some. This shows how horribly some people react to a person who has the virus. Our society is slowly becoming more accepting of the people with this virus, but many refuse to understand they are just humans too. Due to the lack of knowledge with a lot of our population, we believe that simple contact such as a hug can cause someone to catch the virus. This causes us to want to disconnect the people with AIDS from our population. In the end this is slowly tearing our society apart because of how some of these people are treated. A big issue that has come to my attention is the treatments that
can help prevent AIDS from forming. These treatments can cost up to $3,000 a month, most people are not able to afford this. Because of the high price of the medicine, most people who have HIV will be diagnosed with AIDS. This is the sad reality of our society, some life saving things are so expensive that people can die from not being able to get the proper care. About 75% of people who have HIV will develop AIDS within 15 years. This percentage is scary to think about because AIDS is very deadly and with the treatment costing so much, these people live with knowledge of they can most likely develop AIDS and not be able to prevent it. This fact can cause many people to become angry with the government. At one point in the movie a man tries to take Joe Miller out for a drink, believing he is gay.
This causes Joe to lash out, become aggressive, and be offended that someone would think that way of him. To me, this was a very important thing to add. Although Joe is helping a homosexual with his case, he became appalled when someone so much as thought he was gay. Most of our society is not accepting of homosexuals due to religions. With Christianity making up 70% of America’s religions, liking the same gender is frowned upon. At the same time the bible says not to judge your neighbor, putting people in a confused spot. Going back to the scene where Joe is thought to be gay, this shows how people will claim they are accepting of homosexuals but become offended when placed in their
shoes.