My university has condom vending machines in all the bathrooms, and passes free ones out like candy during Orientation week. But, sadly, the O'Week condoms are more often than not turned into baloon animals or volley-balls and the condoms in the vending machines are so frighteningly out of date that using toilet paper could possibly be safer. (Disclaimer: Dont try this at home. Seriously.) They've got the idea right...just not proper implementation.
And since most people worldwide with HIV are druggies, (not that there's anything wrong with druggies... I have to remember where I'm posting) I bet a lot die from drug overdoses.
That's a pretty huge generalisation you're making there. Where does that data come from? Are you taking into account the 2.3 million children under 15 (many of whom most likely contracted it through vertical transmission from an infeced mother), the people who contracted it through being raped, the people who contracted it through unscreened blood transfusions and organ transplants or through untreated blood products, the people who contracted it after accidental needle-stick injuries or accidental blood/mucous membrane contact while working in the health care professions. Sharing of needles is only one of a number of methods of transmission and while, in some countries, it may be able to be said to be a primary cause, I would be highly surprised if that was the case worldwide as you suggest. You say no offence to druggies...but what about no offence to the 38.6 million AIDS victims who have to live with this sort of stigma on top of an often debillitating illness?
(Statistics Worldwide estimates found here)
While I'm not at all belittling HIV and the horrible impact it can have on a person, life is an incurable disease which kills 100% of it's "victims". HIV is an incurable virus that can become a debilitating syndrome which makes you highly susceptible to other things which kill you, but being HIV positive, and, in some cases, even having AIDS itself is something that is becoming increasingly livable with for many years and with a high quality of life. In a lot of cases, it's not the fast death scentence it used to be.
How about transplant patients? On either side of the transplant. If you've got someone who's about to die and they want to donate their organs you could freeze them and buy yourself more time to get them where they're needed or to bring the people who need the organs to them. Likewise, if you've got someone who's been at the top of a donor waiting list for years you could put them in suspended animation for a number of reasons - as a last ditch effort to buy them a bit more time before an already found organ can get to them (although the unfreezing process might take too long for the organ to be viable...) or to give the stressed out organ a bit of a break.
You could have a pay-on-reanimation scheme. You put some money in a high interest account before you got frozen, and by the time you were reanimated you could pay for the costs of being kept, and also for "re-education" into the new society you've woken up in. (Assuming, of course, that people are frozen for at least a decade...you'd probably have to do something else if you were being frozen for a year for tax purposes or similar)
But for vomiting patients, or patients with dysphagia getting a capsule camera down will be a hell of a lot of trouble, and they, unlike the little robot worm thing, cant move the wrong way through the gastro-intestinal tract. I also imagine there's a possibility of the robot being able to do something about working it's way through bowel obstructions...or at least will be able to eventually.
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I'm glad it's not just me who thought that!
My university has condom vending machines in all the bathrooms, and passes free ones out like candy during Orientation week. But, sadly, the O'Week condoms are more often than not turned into baloon animals or volley-balls and the condoms in the vending machines are so frighteningly out of date that using toilet paper could possibly be safer. (Disclaimer: Dont try this at home. Seriously.) They've got the idea right...just not proper implementation.
While I'm not at all belittling HIV and the horrible impact it can have on a person, life is an incurable disease which kills 100% of it's "victims". HIV is an incurable virus that can become a debilitating syndrome which makes you highly susceptible to other things which kill you, but being HIV positive, and, in some cases, even having AIDS itself is something that is becoming increasingly livable with for many years and with a high quality of life. In a lot of cases, it's not the fast death scentence it used to be.
How about transplant patients? On either side of the transplant. If you've got someone who's about to die and they want to donate their organs you could freeze them and buy yourself more time to get them where they're needed or to bring the people who need the organs to them. Likewise, if you've got someone who's been at the top of a donor waiting list for years you could put them in suspended animation for a number of reasons - as a last ditch effort to buy them a bit more time before an already found organ can get to them (although the unfreezing process might take too long for the organ to be viable...) or to give the stressed out organ a bit of a break.
You could have a pay-on-reanimation scheme. You put some money in a high interest account before you got frozen, and by the time you were reanimated you could pay for the costs of being kept, and also for "re-education" into the new society you've woken up in. (Assuming, of course, that people are frozen for at least a decade...you'd probably have to do something else if you were being frozen for a year for tax purposes or similar)
But for vomiting patients, or patients with dysphagia getting a capsule camera down will be a hell of a lot of trouble, and they, unlike the little robot worm thing, cant move the wrong way through the gastro-intestinal tract. I also imagine there's a possibility of the robot being able to do something about working it's way through bowel obstructions...or at least will be able to eventually.