Follow-up
Aha! I beat Susie Bright by two days in my ruminations about diseases' being OK if everyone has them. Susie's entry is better, though.
"Herpes info and treatment should be free. It should be OTC. Doctors across the board should have up-to-date info on the virus. This is still being treated like some nasty nympho-alley disease that we’re all supposed to be shocked to discover. What baloney. The more people start speaking openly about it, the sooner we’ll have public health policy that addresses it with sanity. We need a vaccine, not an abstinence lecture."
...Not that "addressing it with sanity" will ever translate into "free and OTC." We don't even get cold meds (#1 most common virus) for free, so really, there's no hope for free herpes meds (#2 most common virus). OTC and cheap is about the best herpes sufferers can hope for. Hell, maybe it'll even be easier to get than cold meds, assuming there's no way to get meth out of Valtrex.
Interesting train of thought, really. You can get STD prevention for free, in the form of condoms at Planned Parenthood or your college health center, but once you get herpes or any of the other STDs that are transmissible despite condom use, well, you're SOL as far as treatment goes - pay up. You can go out and get free condoms (preventative for STDs), but soap (preventative for colds) you have to buy. (And you're still SOL if you do get a cold. Back to the drugstore with you.)
It's not impossible to get free soap: far from it. If you go into the bathroom at a bar, for example, you get soap for free, usually with a little sign by the dispenser about preventing disease by washing your hands; but in the same bathroom, there's a condom dispenser that is not free. If Planned Parenthood can hand out free condoms (however break-prone they are alleged to be), you'd think they could squeak out room in the budget to distribute them to local bars - or that bars would feel it just as essential to hand out condoms for the same price as the hand soap. Sadly, since there ain't gonna be no law mandating free condoms, just as there ain't gonna be any free OTC herpes meds, bars (or at least the vending machine providers) ain't gonna be altrustic. They have a business to run, same as Big Pharma. (I will not get into a Big Pharma spiel at this time. But I'm having fun imagining the government employee responsible for ordering Valtrex wholesale, in Susie Bright's dream world, the way there must be someone at Planned Parenthood who does wholesale orders from LifeStyles.)
I assume Nevada has laws regarding condom use in its brothels, the same as every state has laws mandating that food handlers wash their hands after using the bathroom, sneezing, etc. If you serve a lot of customers in a capacity in which you could give them a bug, you shall be subject to public health ordinances. I am given to understand that e.g. Dutch whores must get regular VD inspections, just like the French prostitutes immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec. Yet I don't suppose even the Europeans give away medication for anything. OK, end rambly disjointed late-night thoughts.
Susie's post serves as a good reminder to go get tested. I've got a Planned Parenthood appointment later this month. How about you?
"Herpes info and treatment should be free. It should be OTC. Doctors across the board should have up-to-date info on the virus. This is still being treated like some nasty nympho-alley disease that we’re all supposed to be shocked to discover. What baloney. The more people start speaking openly about it, the sooner we’ll have public health policy that addresses it with sanity. We need a vaccine, not an abstinence lecture."
...Not that "addressing it with sanity" will ever translate into "free and OTC." We don't even get cold meds (#1 most common virus) for free, so really, there's no hope for free herpes meds (#2 most common virus). OTC and cheap is about the best herpes sufferers can hope for. Hell, maybe it'll even be easier to get than cold meds, assuming there's no way to get meth out of Valtrex.
Interesting train of thought, really. You can get STD prevention for free, in the form of condoms at Planned Parenthood or your college health center, but once you get herpes or any of the other STDs that are transmissible despite condom use, well, you're SOL as far as treatment goes - pay up. You can go out and get free condoms (preventative for STDs), but soap (preventative for colds) you have to buy. (And you're still SOL if you do get a cold. Back to the drugstore with you.)
It's not impossible to get free soap: far from it. If you go into the bathroom at a bar, for example, you get soap for free, usually with a little sign by the dispenser about preventing disease by washing your hands; but in the same bathroom, there's a condom dispenser that is not free. If Planned Parenthood can hand out free condoms (however break-prone they are alleged to be), you'd think they could squeak out room in the budget to distribute them to local bars - or that bars would feel it just as essential to hand out condoms for the same price as the hand soap. Sadly, since there ain't gonna be no law mandating free condoms, just as there ain't gonna be any free OTC herpes meds, bars (or at least the vending machine providers) ain't gonna be altrustic. They have a business to run, same as Big Pharma. (I will not get into a Big Pharma spiel at this time. But I'm having fun imagining the government employee responsible for ordering Valtrex wholesale, in Susie Bright's dream world, the way there must be someone at Planned Parenthood who does wholesale orders from LifeStyles.)
I assume Nevada has laws regarding condom use in its brothels, the same as every state has laws mandating that food handlers wash their hands after using the bathroom, sneezing, etc. If you serve a lot of customers in a capacity in which you could give them a bug, you shall be subject to public health ordinances. I am given to understand that e.g. Dutch whores must get regular VD inspections, just like the French prostitutes immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec. Yet I don't suppose even the Europeans give away medication for anything. OK, end rambly disjointed late-night thoughts.
Susie's post serves as a good reminder to go get tested. I've got a Planned Parenthood appointment later this month. How about you?