One of the verdicts years from now will be that we had a disease that flourished because we refused to talk about its causes. \u00a0I realize that it thrives in poverty stricken countries. \u00a0I understand that it has long passed into areas of society where people who have done nothing are infected. \u00a0I know that children are born with the disease. \u00a0But I also have a hunch \u2013 a powerful, gnawing hunch \u2013 that this disease that is still passed primarily through intravenous drug use and sexual promiscuity (particularly male\u00a0homosexuality)\u00a0 did not\u00a0coincidentally\u00a0explode on the world scene within a decade of everyone in the West saying we could just strip off our clothes, takes tons of drugs, have tons of sex, and nothing would ever go wrong. \u00a0Despite a National Geographic special I watched that spoke of various pandemics threatening the world, I have a feeling we know full well why AIDS was around for so long, but didn\u2019t become a problem until the 1970s.<\/p>\n