skippy the bush kangaroo: huckabee doesn't heart aids

Saturday, December 08, 2007

huckabee doesn't heart aids

ah, the loneliness of the long-distance front-runner: to the surprise of no one, but much to his own chagrin, mike huckabee's extreme and bigoted statements when running for senator for the state of arkansas are coming back to haunt him. asspress:

mike huckabee once advocated isolating aids patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could "pose a dangerous public health risk."

as a candidate for a u.s. senate seat in 1992, huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by the associated press. besides a quarantine, huckabee suggested that hollywood celebrities fund aids research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.

huckabee said saturday that his comments came at a time when the public was still learning about hiv and aids and promised to do "everything possible to transform the promise of a vaccine and a cure into reality."

still learning about hiv and aids in 1992? you sure you don't mean 82, gov? granted, we are always "still learning" about almost any disease, as new breakthrus are made every year. but to examine how much we we knew or didn't know about hiv and aids in the early 90's, we refer to the aids education global information system (or aegis) timeline:

by 1984, dr. robert gallo had isolated the hiv virus (and the french had done it a year earlier); the following year the fda approved the first hiv antibody test; in '87, azt is approved as the first anti-aids drug; in '89, pentamidine mist is approved for use against pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

sounds to us like we knew an awful lot about aids and hiv transmission by the end of the 80's.

but what mike huckabee was undoubtedly referring to was the 1992 fda approval of ddc as the first nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor as an antiretroviral agent in the fight against the disease. it's true we weren't sure in 1992 if widespread use of ddc would lead to pancreatitis due to mitochondrial toxicity of nrtis on pancreatic cells, until the protocol included zero or minimal alcohol intake in patients taking zalcidabine. so, in effect, we were "still learning" about the disease.

that's obviously what huckabee meant.

Labels: gay/lesbian, huckabee, prez campaign