Lifestyle

Why can't we say that AIDS is a lifestyle disease?

I used to smoke. If I died of emphysema or lung cancer or heart disease, there are people who would have no difficulty saying it was a result of my former lifestyle. Some might even say I "deserved" it - I knew when I smoked that it was not healthy.

I am (for now) overweight. If I died of stroke or heart disease or complications of diabetes, there are people who would have no difficulty saying it was a result of my lifestyle.

People who drink to excess die of liver failure, alcohol poisoning, ruptured esophagus or kidney failure. Rarely does anyone feel constrained NOT to say that those deaths are the result of lifestyle.

AIDS is often the result of unprotected random sex or shared use of dirty needles. Yet it seems to be absolutely forbidden to say that AIDS is a lifestyle disease. Not that AIDS is a punishment for sin, or God's way of cleansing the earth of the depraved - just that AIDS might be contracted as the result of certain unadvisable behaviors. Doesn't it seem that such a stance might make it difficult to communicate how to avoid or prevent AIDS? Isn't this just a little shortsighted?

There is a big difference between pointing out that certain outcomes are the logical, often foreseeable results of certain behaviors, and saying that the outcomes are deserved or are punishment for those behaviors. If we can't talk honestly about connections between cause and effect, the future may be dangerous.