Recently huge controversy came up concerning whether or not to pull the life support plug for a person who isn’t “living”.  This case delt with Terry Schiavo.  Although the cells of Terry’s body were alive, Terry was suffering severe brain damage.  Eventually her husband asked to pull the feeding tube out of her and allow her to die of dehydration.  Unfortunately, Terry’s parents disagreed with pulling the tube and wanted to continue to have her on life support.  Terry spent fifteen years on that life support bed, while her family argued about what was the best decision.

So, what do you think is the best decision?  I believe if I was in that situation I would have wanted the tube to be pulled.  For those fifteen years, she had been brain dead.  I know that I would prefer to be dead than to be a vegetable on a life support bed.  It seems to me that pulling the tube would allow her body and soul to rest.  Keeping her on life support is pretty much useless if there is no chance of change in her condition and eventually the expense of the life support will increase to great amounts.  I’ll let you make your own decision but I believe that Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube should have been immediately pulled.

Coming up with a reasonable defination of when you are not alive, is quite hard. BUT…..
In my opinion, I believe that when a person is incapable of thinking they are not considered to be “living”.

When I was asked the simple question, should HIV+ infected kids be allowed to attend public school, I thought the answer was going to be very simple.  But as I thought about it, my answer seemed to be a very difficult decision. 

A lot of risk is taken when allowing infected students to intermingle with non-infected students.  In the younger classes, such as Kindergarten, children have a tendency of biting each other.  Should this risk of passing the disease be taken?  Another common way of transmitting the disease is when injuries occur during sporting events.  I dont’t believe that it is necessary for HIV+ students to be separated into different schools or not be allowed to go to public school. Everyone should have the opportunity and chance to like the rest along with enjoying the perks of schooling with others.  I believe that they also need to also interact with non-infected kids, because eventually when they get out of school that is what their life will consist of.  I think that there are precautions that the school, teachers and parents should take just to ensure safety with others.  They should also notify the parents of the non-infected students in the school if they they want to be informed, just to make them aware of the situation that there is HIV+ students enrolled in school.  In the older age setting (like high school), hopefully parents might teach their child the risk of having intimate relationships and the chances of getting HIV.  Though the parents should not be aware of the students’ names for privacy purposes and for the risk that the student(s) would be ostracized.  The parents should also be aware that HIV and AIDS is becoming a more common disease in our country and they can’t shield their child from everything harmful in their surroundings.  There are HIV+ doctors who exam, and operate on patients, their is also a low to none risk of HIV being passed like this.  Many might say, “Oh, well Tommy* (HIV+ child) spit on me. I’M GETTING HIV!!” That is NOT TRUE…information from the Centers of Disease and Prevention( http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/transmission.htm ) provided me with this:

HIV has been found in saliva and tears in very low quantities from some AIDS patients. It is important to understand that finding a small amount of HIV in a body fluid does not necessarily mean that HIV can be transmitted by that body fluid. HIV has not been recovered from the sweat of HIV-infected persons. Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of HIV. 

Just as a precaution for everyone not just for the HIV+ students, the school should try to supply teachers with a stock of protective hand-ware in case of emergencies.  With children biting each other, there is not much we can do except try and promote no-biting and if an incidence does happen treat every student the same and immediately was the wound with an anti-bacterial.  But maybe to your surprise biting is not a major risk we should be worrying about, the following information was collected from the website of Center for Disease Control and Prevention ( http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/transmission.htm ). 

In 1997, CDC published findings from a state health department investigation of an incident that suggested blood-to-blood transmission of HIV by a human bite. There have been other reports in the medical literature in which HIV appeared to have been transmitted by a bite. Severe trauma with extensive tissue tearing and damage and presence of blood were reported in each of these instances. Biting is not a common way of transmitting HIV. In fact, there are numerous reports of bites that did not result in HIV infection.

I think that if we didn’t allow these students to come to public school, we wouldn’t be treating everyone EQUALLY.  Which is what our country is all about.  Equality.  Although our country is not perfect and does not always treat everyone equally, this is a matter that everyone should be treated equally.  So the answer to the all important question, would be YES.  They should be allowed to attend public schools even if there is a high risk.

If I could go back in time, I think I would want to go back to the 1880′s, when Gerhard Hansen was studying the Hansen’s disease (leprosy).  Gerhard Hansen concluded that leprosy was a specific disease with a specific cause.  In 1873, Hansen announced the discovery of Mycobacterium leprae,  in the sufferers, but was not able to identify it as a bacteria so he received little support from others in the outside world. 

In 1879, Hansen gave some of the tissue samples to Albert Neisser, who then successfully stained the bacteria and announced his findings and claimed he found the disease causing organism.  There was conflict that went on between Neisser and Hansen, because Hansen actually discovered the bacterium and Neisser was the identifier of its origin.  Then Neisser claimed that Hansen was of no help to his studies, and Hansen had no documented proof and that he had no prove that the organisms were infectious. 

If I was able to go back and tell Hansen any advice that would have helped him, I think I would have let Hansen know that Neisser was going to try and claim all the credit.  I would have let himknow that he should have created a written compromise with Neisser to share credit.  I also would have advised him to record more of his own information and keep things legit, with no questions asked. 

Hansen also made the mistake of infecting a female patient with the bacteria with out consent.  I would have told him that to not face trial and charges in the future, he should have asked the patient for consent.  I would have also hinted at the treatments that are now available for leprosy.  Hopefully, this might have helped him realized another factor to the cause of the bacteria, and increased his studies.