AIDS and YOU (May 1987) Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers

AIDS and YOU (May 1987) By Martin H. Goodman MD (this essay is in the public domain) Introduction: AIDS is a life and death issue. To have the AIDS disease is at present a sentence of slow but inevitable death. I've already lost one friend to AIDS. I may soon lose others. My own sexual behavior and that of many of my friends has been profoundly altered by it. In my part of the country, one man in 10 may already be carrying the AIDS virus. While the figures may currently be less in much of the rest of the country, this is changing rapidly. There currently is neither a cure, nor even an effective treatment, and no vaccine either. But there are things that have been PROVEN immensely effective in slowing the spread of this hideously lethal disease. In this essay I hope to present this information. History and Overview: AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Defficiency Disease. It is caused by a virus. The disease originated somewhere in Africa about 20 years ago. There it first appeared as a mysterious ailment afflicting primarily heterosexuals of both sexes. It probably was spread especially fast by primarily female prostitutes there. AIDS has already become a crisis of STAGGERING proportions in parts of Africa. In Zaire, it is estimated that over twenty percent of the adults currently carry the virus. That figure is increasing. And what occurred there will, if no cure is found, most likely occur here among heterosexual folks. AIDS was first seen as a disease of gay males in this country. This was a result of the fact that gay males in this culture in the days before AIDS had an average of 200 to 400 new sexual contacts per year. This figure was much higher than common practice among heterosexual (straight) men or women. In addition, it turned out that rectal sex was a particularly effective way to transmit the disease, and rectal sex is a common practice among gay males. For these reasons, the disease spread in the gay male population of this country immensely more quickly than in other populations. It became to be thought of as a "gay disease". Because the disease is spread primarily by exposure of ones blood to infected blood or semen, I.V. drug addicts who shared needles also soon were identified as an affected group. As the AIDS epidemic began to affect increasingly large fractions of those two populations (gay males and IV drug abusers), many of the rest of this society looked on smugly, for both populations tended to be despised by the "mainstream" of society here. But AIDS is also spread by heterosexual sex. In addition, it is spread by blood transfusions. New born babies can acquire the disease from infected mothers during pregnancy. Gradually more and more "mainstream" folks got the disease. Most recently, a member of congress died of the disease. Finally, even the national news media began to join in the task of educating the public to the notion that AIDS can affect everyone. Basic medical research began to provide a few bits of information, and some help. The virus causing the disease was isolated and identified. The AIDS virus turned out to be a very unusual sort of virus. Its genetic material was not DNA, but RNA. When it infected human cells, it had its RNA direct the synthesis of viral DNA. While RNA viruses are not that uncommon, very few RNA viruses reproduce by setting up the flow of information from RNA to DNA. Such reverse or "retro" flow of information does not occur at all in any DNA virus or any other living things. Hence, the virus was said to belong to the rare group of virues called "Retro Viruses". Research provided the means to test donated blood for the presence of the antibodies to the virus, astronomically reducing the chance of ones getting AIDS from a blood transfusion. This was one of the first real breakthroughs. The same discoveries that allowed us to make our blood bank blood supply far safer also allowed us to be able to tell (in most cases) whether one has been exposed to the AIDS virus using a

Critically analyse the recruitment challenges in the case study, Essay

Critically analyse the recruitment challenges in the case study, including how they impact on the strategic issues mentioned in the case - Essay Example According to Bradshaw (2007), in any profession, employees are attracted to work for an organisation that can guarantee full time job.1 This way, employees are assured of job security and development in their course of employment in the organisation. With this in mind, Black CAP employs individuals to work for it on a contract basis, which is a part time job that lasts for three to five years. In this regard, the organisation has a challenge of hiring people that wish to work on a part time basis. In fact, studies have documented that most of the people that work on a part time basis lack the necessary skills, experience and competence that can foster organisational growth (Allen 2008). This is attributable to the idea of lack of full time job that can lock such people from acquiring skills and experience obtained by people employed permanently through training and development and other incentives accrued from long term employment.2 Therefore, Black CAP may end up only hiring desperate employees that have failed securing job in other organisations and decide to work in any organisation under any working conditions provided by the organisation. Besides, Kim (2006) noted that owing to the fact that the employees know that they would not be working for the organisation for a long time, employees can lack the required motivation to keep them productive to bring change to the organisation.3 Yudhvir (2012) argued that there are many incentives that help improve the morale of workers including non monetary benefits.4 One of these incentives is the assurance of the employer to employee that he has a permanent job that he can rely on. This way, the employee is motivated to work hard to produce top results for the organisation.5 Since Black CAP is a nonprofit organisation, its remuneration package for its employees is much far less than that of private and public sectors. Therefore, the organisation is faced with the challenge of attracting proficient

International and Comparative Employment Relations Essay

International and Comparative Employment Relations - Essay Example The works on the labour standards and race to bottom are rather limited in the existing literature. Developed countries are now under the radar as there have been evidences that OECD countries are compromising on their labour protection issue. Many multinational companies like Foxconn are increasingly coming under scrutiny due to the unfair labour practices promoted by them (Chan, 2013). The purpose of this essay is to discuss the optimal labour standards mechanisms that should be developed by multinational companies so that they can qualify to be sustainable. The essay first establishes the problem that is being faced by the labourers and then discusses possible measures to improve the situation. The problem of race to bottom in labour market has been traced to the collective bargaining power of the labourers. The research conducted by Javorcik and Spatareanu (2011) had shown that multinational companies have been greatly deterred to enter into countries which have high labour costs on account of collective bargaining, a condition which is largely prevalent in the developed countries. The research conducted by Davies and Vadlamannati (2013) had shown that OECD countries have greatly relaxed their labour practices and joined the race to bottom. Their research had pointed out that it is not the labour laws which have gone through changes. It is rather the labour practices related to the enforcement of labour laws which have been hampered to a great extent. This behaviour of the countries can be directly seen as an attempt to attract higher Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Similar findings were also made by Olney (2010) and he had observed that nations are engaged in a cut thro at competition with one another to reduce labour standards.