Page Two

Healthy people of all ages can get AIDS, the terrifying plague that has spread around the world. In some places it is now the number one health problem for younger adults. Perhaps you know someone who has AIDS.

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is a condition in which a virus damages the body’s immune system, rendering it helpless against infection.

Just how widespread is AIDS now? How did that happen? Is AIDS preventable?

AIDS​—A Global Killer

SOME medical authorities feel that AIDS is on the verge of becoming a global catastrophe. “AIDS may be the health catastrophe of our lifetime,” claimed The New York Times. Dr. William O’Connor, a microbiologist, said: “What we’re dealing with is probably the greatest plague ever to hit the world.”

Dr. Halfdan Mahler of WHO (World Health Organization) stated: “We stand nakedly in front of a very serious pandemic as mortal as any pandemic there ever has been. . . . Everything is getting worse and worse in AIDS.”

With each passing year, the death toll increases. Soon, the death toll will likely be many times larger. And this may be the case even if not one more person were to be infected with the AIDS virus. Why? Because of the huge number of people who already have the virus, which stays with a person for a lifetime.

How many already have the virus? Some have said ten million worldwide. The report AIDS and the Third World estimates that before long, AIDS “will have infected 50-100 million people.”

That estimate is based on what has happened in Africa, Europe, and North America. But AIDS is also in Latin America and has entered Asia. Denmark’s Politiken observes: “What will happen if and when the epidemic breaks out in serious proportions in South America and Asia? . . . The number of infected will not be as low as 50-100 million.” Even if such figures are exaggerated, without a doubt there are millions of people already infected. And there will be many more millions in the years just ahead.

Also, the vast majority of those who now have the AIDS virus do not know that they have it. They are in apparent good health and yet can pass the virus on to others. So the number of people infected with the AIDS virus is certain to go much higher.

Surgeon general of the United States, C. E. Koop, said: “No previous disease has been at once so mysterious, so fatal, and so resistant to therapy and vaccine development.” He stated: “We do not yet have a cure, nor do we have a vaccine​—and we probably won’t have one generally available before the end of the century. Make no mistake about it. AIDS is fatal and it is spreading.” Dr. Koop also said: “I have been a surgeon for almost 50 years, and I have never seen such a threat as AIDS.”

AIDS Carriers​—How Many Could Die?

WHEN AIDS was first identified in 1981, health officials estimated that about 5 to 10 percent of those who had the virus would get the disease and die. But the virus proved to have a long incubation period. It may take five years or more for symptoms to become apparent.

Now, with the experience of the past eight years, some officials are estimating that 40 to 50 percent, or more, of those carrying the AIDS virus will develop the disease and die. AIDS and the Third World stated: “A computer model is said to predict that 50% of HIV-carriers will develop full-blown AIDS in five years, and 75% in seven years.” (The term “HIV” comes from the words “Human Immunodeficiency Virus,” the AIDS virus.)

The publication then said: “Many medical experts, and a majority of virologists, now believe that the death toll among HIV-carriers will approach very close to 100%. . . . The belief that all will eventually die is based partly on the fact that as every year goes by, more people who contracted the virus three or four or five years ago do indeed develop the disease. And it is based partly on the studies of the HIV virus itself.” Of course, such views are estimates. Only time will tell if they will be realized in actual fact.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, researcher at the National Institutes of Health in the United States, noted that about 90 percent of individuals who test positive for HIV antibodies have some sort of immune function impairment within five years.

Even if “only” 50 percent die of the 50 million to 100 million virus carriers projected for the near future, it would mean millions of deaths each year sometime in the next decade. One source put the projected death toll in Africa alone as possibly tens of millions.

Compared to War

The consequences of the AIDS plague in lives lost, in damage to society, and in financial cost are being compared to the consequences of major wars.

For example, in the United States, about 40,000 have already died. From one million to two million more are said to be infected. In New York City alone, an estimated 250,000 to 400,000 residents have the virus. In some parts of the city, AIDS has become the most common infectious disease in newborn babies.

While the rate of increase in the United States has slowed in some high-risk groups and the feared explosion of AIDS among heterosexuals has not come to pass, the number of deaths will still be very high in the near future. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimates that by the end of 1991, over 200,000 Americans will have died from AIDS. In the one year, 1991, it is expected that over 50,000 will die from it. And by the end of 1992​—only four years from now—​more Americans may have died from AIDS than died in World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.

In fact, The Futurist states: “AIDS may kill more people by the end of this century than have been killed by all of our wars [of all the nations].”

The projected costs are staggering. In the United States the estimate is $50,000 or more per year for each patient. So in the years ahead, many billions of dollars will be required annually to pay for patient care. Some fear that health-care systems will be unable to cope with the number of patients or the cost.

Worse in Africa

In Africa few if any wars have ever done what AIDS is now doing. Britain’s New Scientist observes: “AIDS is running rampant through Africa.” An article in Politiken of Denmark said: “Uganda’s chief AIDS official states, ‘Unless something changes, every second adult in this country will be HIV-positive in the year 2000.’ Almost half of all the AIDS cases in Africa are women in their child-bearing years. Children account for one of every five AIDS cases in Rwanda. In Zambia, 6,000 babies will be born with AIDS this year. Among 800 prostitutes tested in Nairobi, nine out of 10 were infected with HIV. And these women sleep with an average of 1,000 customers per year.”

“If we do nothing, the continent will die,” says Pieter Piot, a Belgian expert. Jonathan Mann, who heads the WHO campaign, states: “The alternative is to give up on Africa, as if the world were not a single planet. But the epidemic cannot be stopped in any one country before it is stopped in all of them.”

Thus, many medical authorities feel that a global AIDS catastrophe has already begun. UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar calls it a “global conflict” that “threatens us with all the consequences of war.”

In some ways it is worse than war. Why? Because no end is in sight, the casualties continue to mount, and the “wounded” are not recovering.

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‘Many now believe that the death toll of HIV carriers will approach very close to 100 percent’

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“AIDS may kill more people by the end of the century than have been killed by all of our wars”

Why AIDS Is So Deadly

TO UNDERSTAND better how to protect ourselves from AIDS, we need to know why it is so deadly. What makes this virus more difficult to deal with than other viruses?

Viruses are the smallest of all disease-producing organisms, much smaller than bacteria. Influenza, polio, and the common cold are produced by different viruses. Once inside a host cell, a virus may kill the cell or merely “sleep” there until it becomes more active later. With the AIDS virus, it may take five or more years before symptoms develop.

Why So Deadly

What makes the AIDS virus so deadly is the fact that it attacks and disables key cells, including white blood cells that the body produces to help ward off disease. These white blood cells (called T-4 lymphocytes) are the body’s main defense against disease.

When these white cells are disabled by the AIDS virus, they cannot do their job. Thus, the body’s immune system is devastated. Infections that may not previously have been life-threatening now are. These include other viruses, parasites, bacteria, fungi, or various cancers.

Since the body is no longer able to fight these infections, they progress until the victim is dead. These infections are called opportunistic. They take advantage of the opportunity afforded to them by the body’s suppressed immune system. A person with AIDS may have several such infections at the same time.

Among the early symptoms of AIDS are: prolonged and unexplained fatigue; swollen glands that last for months; persistent fevers or night sweats; persistent diarrhea; unexplained weight loss; discolored lesions of the skin or mucous membranes that do not go away; a persistent, unexplained cough; a thick whitish coating on the tongue or in the throat; easy bruising or unexplained bleeding. These early symptoms are often referred to as “AIDS Related Complex,” or ARC.

When AIDS becomes full-blown, deadly diseases develop. Among the more common are lung infections caused by parasitic germs known as Pneumocystis carinii, and the skin cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma, which also involves internal organs. In addition, the AIDS virus can affect the brain, causing paralysis, blindness, dementia, and eventual death. Dr. Richard T. Johnson, a Johns Hopkins professor of neurology, stated: “HIV [the AIDS virus] is in the brains of at least 1 million people in the U.S.”

Full-blown AIDS is accompanied by pain and uncontrollable weight loss, with the body getting weaker and weaker until death ensues. In Africa, says The Lancet, AIDS “has been associated with ‘slim disease,’ a term that describes the great loss of weight that accompanies diarrhoea.” From the onset of the disease to death may take a year or less, or it may take several years.

A Persistent Virus

There is another factor that contributes to making the AIDS virus more deadly than others. It has built-in mechanisms for survival not common to other viruses.

For example, in humans the influenza virus may last only a few days or weeks, and it stimulates antibodies that help to protect the victim from further infection by that particular virus. Once the epidemic runs its course, it disappears. The flu pandemic of 1918 lasted only about a year. The yellow fever virus depends on mosquitoes, which diminish in number with seasonal changes. Smallpox may also quickly run through a susceptible population and then disappear.

However, the AIDS virus is presumed to be persistent. It probably stays inside the human host for a lifetime and does not disappear on its own. The victim does not recover from the full-blown AIDS disease and so is unable to build the kind of immunity that would resist a recurrence.

Furthermore, the AIDS virus has shown significant variation in its genetic composition, making it more difficult to develop a vaccine. And viruses usually mutate, that is, change their character. For example, there are many different types of influenza and cold viruses. Already, a second type of AIDS virus has been identified in Africa and elsewhere. A different vaccine may be required for each type.

But why has AIDS spread so widely? What practices were involved that helped its insidious infiltration into the human family?

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FACTORS THAT PREPARE THE WAY FOR AIDS

According to the British medical journal The Lancet, each year more than 300 million additional people throughout the world become infected with sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, and chlamydia. These may weaken the body, perhaps making it even more susceptible to the AIDS virus. Recreational, or illegal, drug use, too, may make the body less resistant to AIDS.

Also, in underdeveloped lands the lack of good nutrition due to poverty and the lack of adequate health-care facilities works against the building of the body’s resistance to AIDS. The health of hundreds of millions in those areas is already substandard, making it easier for the virus to claim additional victims.

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White T-cells of the body’s immune system normally fight off harmful invaders

Why Has AIDS Spread So Widely?

WHY has AIDS become so widespread? While it is not certain exactly how, when, or where it originated, there are general patterns that explain its spread. In the United States and Europe, for example, the main avenue for spreading AIDS was male homosexual activity. When the epidemic was first identified, it appeared almost exclusively among homosexual (and bisexual) men. Until recently, over 70 percent of adult victims were homosexual men.

Then AIDS began to appear among intravenous drug users. In a few years, over 15 percent of all cases came from this group, which is getting larger. In some places, half of all intravenous drug users have the AIDS virus. Thus, Science magazine stated: “The great majority of Americans infected today are either homosexual men or intravenous drug users.”

In San Francisco, 50 percent or more of homosexual men have the AIDS virus. The city’s homosexual community is being devastated by AIDS deaths. A long-term study of homosexual men there showed that of those diagnosed as having the AIDS virus seven years ago, 78 percent had either full-blown AIDS, earlier symptoms of it, or some immune impairment. And while the rate of new cases among homosexuals has decreased, there is little that can be done for those already infected.

Regarding Haiti, the Los Angeles Times noted: “New data suggests that the AIDS virus was introduced into the Caribbean primarily by homosexual contact between islanders and Americans.”

Why So Susceptible?

Why are homosexuals so susceptible to AIDS? Because of their sex practices. While AIDS is also spread by oral intercourse, it is the practice of anal intercourse (sodomy) that has been the primary way of passing AIDS among homosexuals.

The human anus was designed for the elimination of waste​—excrement—​and not for sexual intercourse. It has only a thin layer of epithelial cells, the tissue that lines the anus. Anal intercourse results in a tearing of this lining and in bleeding fissures. Infected semen going into the rectum from the partner can provide a source of AIDS, as can abrasions and lesions on the male organ. Also, the damaged rectal tissues of the recipient permit infected secretions to pass the infection on to other sex partners.

In addition, homosexuals often have many partners​—hundreds, even thousands—​in a lifetime. One young homosexual who infected many others before dying from AIDS was reported to have had 2,500 homosexual contacts with men in ten years. His job with an airline enabled him to travel extensively. Another claimed to have had some 5,000 homosexual contacts in 20 years. The possibility that such people will spread AIDS is obvious.

Another factor is that because of their sexual practices, other diseases, such as hepatitis, gonorrhea, and herpes, are common among homosexuals. These diseases damage the body and, it is thought, make it more susceptible to AIDS.

Homosexuality Unnatural?

There can be no question about it: Homosexual relations have greatly accelerated the spread of AIDS. Such practices are against the biologic design of the human body.

Homosexuality thus cannot simply be passed off as an ‘alternate life-style.’ It is unnatural, a perversion of the way we were created. The Bible includes it among actions that result from “a disapproved mental state” and says: “God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.”​—Romans 1:26-32.

Too, God’s Law to the nation of ancient Israel stated: “When a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing.”​—Leviticus 20:13.

That homosexuality is unnatural can be seen from this basic fact: If everyone were exclusively homosexual, the human race would die out in one generation.

Is this to say, as some have suggested, that God is bringing the AIDS plague on homosexuals? No, the Bible does not say that. Instead, it is a matter of their ‘reaping what they are sowing.’ (Galatians 6:7) God’s Word states this principle: “They have acted ruinously on their own part; . . . the defect is their own.”​—Deuteronomy 32:5.

Heterosexuals Also Infected

However, AIDS is not just a homosexual disease; it has also spread to heterosexual men and women. One way is by means of bisexual men who become infected from sexual contacts with other men and then infect women with whom they have intercourse.

Intravenous drug users who share contaminated syringes and needles also pass AIDS on to others. They can then infect the men or women with whom they have sexual relations. In many places a high percentage of prostitutes have AIDS and pass it on to their customers.

In Africa, AIDS is widespread among heterosexuals. As many women as men have it. While the spread of AIDS among heterosexuals in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere is not yet as rampant as in Africa, it is increasing in that group too. So more and more women and men who are not homosexual or bisexual are getting AIDS and passing it on to others. A report stated: “AIDS has become the No. 1 killer of women aged 25-34 in New York City.” And sadly, a large number​—some say about 50 percent—​of women carrying the AIDS virus are giving birth to babies who have the disease.

Because there has been a permissive attitude toward sexual morality during the past few decades, fornication and adultery have become commonplace. Men and women often have many different sex partners. And those who are infected with AIDS can pass it on to others. Such promiscuous behavior is also condemned in the Bible.​—1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Revelation 22:15.

Blood​—Another Source of Infection

Others were infected by blood transfusions. The Medical Post of Canada reports: “Dr. Thomas Peterman, a medical epidemiologist with the AIDS branch of the Centers for Disease Control . . . estimated that 12,000 Americans became infected with HIV [AIDS virus] from contaminated blood transfusions from 1978-1984.”

Many of these blood recipients have died or are dying. Various hospitals have advised those who received blood transfusions before new testing methods were introduced in 1985 to get checked for AIDS.

Studies by the Federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimated that by early 1985 most of the 10,000 Americans with severe hemophilia had been infected with the AIDS virus. In addition, from 30 to 50 percent with more moderate hemophilia had also been infected. It is estimated that over half of the hemophiliacs in Brazil may have been infected with the AIDS virus.

Dr. Margaret Hilgartner of the New York Hospital​—Cornell Medical Center said: “A severe hemophiliac is exposed to the blood of 800,000 to 1 million different people every year. Before the drug companies started heat-treating the blood products, the risk of infection was incredible.” She also said: “We are seeing more and more suicides among young hemophiliacs. They are very angry. They feel like scapegoats.”

Jonathan Goldsmith of the Nebraska Regional Hemophilia Center in Omaha said that transfusion medicine “has always been dangerous because you are dealing with a biological product. But this is the worst. It has produced a great sadness in physicians. We never intended anything like this to happen.”

Married people who have been infected with AIDS through blood transfusions can pass the disease on to their mates through sex relations. In one study of married men who got AIDS from blood transfusions, it was found that 14 percent of their wives also had the virus.

In Africa, it is reported that some 10 percent of all men and women who have the AIDS virus received it through infected blood from transfusions or the use of contaminated needles, such as in vaccinations. Since some estimate that there may be some five million AIDS carriers there, this could mean that there are over 500,000 people in Central Africa who got the AIDS virus from contaminated blood.

With AIDS so widespread now, what can people do to protect themselves?

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In Africa, AIDS is widespread among heterosexuals

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In Africa, some 10 percent who have the virus got it through infected blood

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AIDS was first spread mainly through homosexuals and drug addicts. Blood transfusions have also spread AIDS

How to Avoid AIDS

MANY government and private agencies have educational campaigns to help people learn how to avoid AIDS. However, what is often missing in such advice is any moral consideration. Rarely is any appeal made to avoid a practice because it is morally wrong.

Regarding this, TV commentator Ted Koppel said to a university graduating class: “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. Shoot up [drugs] if you must, but use a clean needle. Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but wear a condom. No! The answer is no. Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might end up in jail or dying in an AIDS ward, but no because it’s wrong, because we have spent 5,000 years as a race of rational human beings . . . searching for truth and moral absolutes. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach. What Moses brought down from Mount Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions.”

The Way to Avoid AIDS

The AIDS plague could have been avoided. As The New York Times Magazine said: “It is the first plague in the history of mankind whose regulation is entirely dependent upon our knowing behavior.”

To avoid AIDS, a cardinal rule must be: Live a moral life. This means no sexual relations outside of marriage and no illicit drug use. Yes, there must be a change in behavior patterns, for, as Science News reported, “it is obvious that it is behavior that transmits the virus that causes AIDS.”

Very few who live moral lives get AIDS. True, one marriage mate may be moral, but the other mate may be immoral and infected with AIDS and may thus pass on the disease to the innocent mate. Of course, an innocent mate who suspects the other of immorality or drug abuse has the right to take protective steps. The innocent are not required, as it were, to commit suicide.

The Tokyo newspaper Asahi Shimbun quotes health officials as saying: “If you are leading an ordinary life, you will not contract the disease. So there is no reason to be inordinately worried about the disease. But if you want to ‘fool around,’ do so at your own risk, the risk of committing suicide.” Shoko Nagaya of the health ministry advised: “Know your partner.”

Is it really possible, however, to “know your partner” in this permissive world that has winked at immorality? How can you be certain that your partner has not been sexually immoral or has not abused drugs and thus been exposed to AIDS?

What is needed is education that moves people to hate what is morally wrong. And regardless of today’s permissive views, sex outside of marriage is immoral, as is illicit drug use. These practices can lead to sickness and premature death.

No Guarantee

In one country, 93 percent of 18- and 19-year-old men and women interviewed had engaged in immoral sex relations. Only 25 percent of the men and 20 percent of the women said that they had ever used a condom​—the medical device recommended by some medical officials as an AIDS preventive. In another land, a study revealed that after being diagnosed as AIDS-positive, homosexual men merely cut the number of partners in six months from 12 to 5. More of them feel secure because of increased condom use.

But is condom use a guarantee? Various health officials estimate the failure rate for condoms at from 2 to 10 percent or more, with natural membrane condoms being much less effective than those made from latex. The Financial Post of Canada reports: “Jack Layton, chairman of Toronto Board of Health, says prophylactics [condoms] have a failure rate of up to 30% in preventing pregnancy.”

Beth Aub, writing in The Daily Gleaner of Jamaica, says: “The condom is not any more safe today than it ever was. In fact, it is less so, as the AIDS virus is much smaller than the human sperm and it will, therefore, be that much easier to slip through, and while the female can only become pregnant on a few days of each month she is exposed to AIDS whenever she has sex with an infected male. The condom is not safe.” And Surgeon General Koop warns that condoms have “extraordinarily high” failure rates when used by homosexuals.

Thus, these devices are no guarantee against getting AIDS. Instead, living by the Bible’s high moral standards is the very best protection.

Is the Blood Supply Safe?

Until testing of blood began in 1985, thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands when including Africa) of people got AIDS from contaminated blood. In some places the number is still large. A report this year from Africa states: “Nearly one in 15 Central African children receiving blood transfusions to combat malaria-related anemia may become infected with the AIDS virus as a result, a new study has found. Transfusions are now the No. 2 source of AIDS transmission in the region.”

In Western countries it is claimed that the blood supply is now virtually safe. But how safe? In the usual tests for AIDS, it is the antibodies that reveal the presence of the virus. But, as The Economist states, “the antibodies picked up in the test take time to appear.” People donating blood can have the AIDS virus but may not yet have developed the antibodies. So although declared AIDS free, they have the virus and can pass it on when their blood is used in transfusions. And the New York Blood Center estimates that about 90 percent who receive transfusions of even a single unit of AIDS-infected blood will become infected with the AIDS virus.

Dr. Harvey Klein of the U.S. National Institutes of Health says that it may take six weeks to three months for antibodies to appear. During that time, a newly infected person’s blood may not have antibodies, or not enough of them, to show up in testing.

The Medical Post of Canada states: “Antibodies, detectable by current screening tests, can take as long as six months to develop.” A U.S. National Cancer Institute study showed that some individuals do not develop testable antibodies until 14 months after infection with the AIDS virus. Still newer findings reported by The Lancet, a British medical journal, reveal that the AIDS virus may multiply in someone even longer before becoming evident in tests. Though there are efforts to develop tests that can detect the virus even before antibodies appear, these are only at an early stage.

A medical report by specialists at Mainz University in the Federal Republic of Germany states: “Transfusion medicine has to accept the fact that absolutely HIV-free blood no longer exists.”

Other Blood Diseases

Making the matter worse is the fact that diseases other than AIDS are far more commonly passed on by blood transfusions. Dr. Klein states: “AIDS has gotten all the publicity. But over the last 25 years, really the most important problem in blood transfusion is post-transfusion hepatitis. And even today, the major cause of death related to blood transfusion is post-transfusion hepatitis.”

One form of this disease is called non-A/​non-B hepatitis. In the United States, over 190,000 people contract it in blood transfusions every year. Of these, some 10,000 are killed or permanently injured. The virus has not yet been clearly identified, and there is no sure test for it at this time.

Thus, the French medical daily Le Quotidien du Médecin states: “Maybe Jehovah’s Witnesses are right in refusing the use of blood products, for it is true that an important number of pathogenic agents can be transmitted by transfused blood.”

You Have a Choice

Each individual must make a choice in this matter. If the choice is to continue immoral relationships or illegal drug use, then one must face the consequences: the reaping of harm for the sowing of moral wrong.

But who is to establish proper moral values? Well, who knows our makeup best and what the consequences are for violating such moral standards? Surely, the Creator of humans does. And in his inspired Word, the Bible, he plainly states: “God is not one to be mocked. For whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap; because he who is sowing with a view to his flesh will reap corruption from his flesh.”​—Galatians 6:7, 8.

There is no question that man’s Creator has determined that homosexuality, fornication, and adultery are moral wrongs, as is illicit drug use. His Word tells us: “Do not be misled. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men kept for unnatural purposes, nor men who lie with men” can expect God’s approval.​—1 Corinthians 6:9; see also 2 Corinthians 7:1.

The Bible warns: “Keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication.” (Acts 15:29) The Greek word used here for “fornication” includes every kind of sexual intercourse other than between a man and his wife. And did you notice that this command includes avoiding the use of blood?

The continuing words of that scripture apply today with even greater force. It states: “If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!” Consider how many have died and will yet die from AIDS because of immoral sexual activity and drugs, as well as the thousands (in Africa possibly hundreds of thousands) from contaminated blood. Consider, too, the hundreds of millions whose health is being damaged by other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as by other complications of blood transfusions and by drug abuse.

When these are added together, it makes up a huge toll in poor health and untimely death. In view of the consequences, we can see the wisdom of the Creator’s prohibition of these practices.

Professor Vicente Amato Neto, Brazilian expert on infectious diseases, says: “I often say that the best prevention for AIDS is for one to become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, for the members of that religion are neither homosexuals nor bisexuals, they are loyal to their marriage​—they associate it with reproduction—​don’t use drugs and, to complete the picture, they don’t accept blood transfusions.”

Toronto Life magazine states: “The only clear-cut answer to AIDS is celibacy leading to monogamy.” And Valentin Pokrovsky, president of the Soviet Union’s Academy of Medical Sciences, affirms: “Combating AIDS cannot be confined to medical efforts. A healthy way of life, purity of relations between the sexes and conjugal fidelity are the best means for AIDS prevention.”

Yes, accepting the Creator’s standards for human behavior is the best way to avoid AIDS.

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“What Moses brought down from Mount Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions”

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Blood transfusions have spread AIDS​—and still do

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Chastity leading to marriage can prevent many heartaches, including AIDS