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Why has the war metaphor so dominated our approach to infectious disease? One reason is that the metaphor has been successful in some arenas. We humans rally to the defense against a common enemy, and this support led to the control of many damaging infectious diseases during the first half of the twentieth century. Still, [...]
The emergence of new disease organisms from human enclaves was once a great danger that often materialized into great devastation. Plague carried off one third of the European population in the fourteenth century. Yellow fever created more sporadic havoc, biting out sizable chunks of cities such as Memphis and Philadelphia in the seventeenth and [...]
Help with financing health care is offered by both state and federal governments. One kind of help, called Medicaid, is available to those who are indigent; that is, people who are unable to support themselves. The other kind of help with finances is called Medicare. Medicare is an add-on to Social Security benefits. Therefore, if [...]
To repeat, the HIV test is designed to determine the presence of HIV infection—that is, it is designed to detect antibodies to the virus. Antibodies to the virus are present in virtually all people who are infected and absent in people who are not infected. Test results are usually either positive, meaning the antibodies are [...]