Deny, Deny, Deny
by matt at 6:30 am on December 7th, 2004 in Bill Frist, Congressional Man Date
It’s not just high school kids who are in need of better sex education, apparently some doctors need a refresher course or two. From ABC’s This Week:
George Stephanopoulos:…Now, you’re a doctor. Do you believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?
Senate Minority Leader Dr. Bill Frist: I don’t know. I can tell you…
Stephanopoulos: You don’t know?
Frist: I can tell you things like, like …
Stephanopoulos: Well, wait, let me stop you, you don’t know that, you believe that tears and sweat might be able to transmit AIDS?
Frist: Yeah, no, I can tell you that HIV is not very transmissible as an element like, compared to smallpox, compared to the flu. It is not, but the first slide, because I think it’s dangerous to show that and then sort of walk away.
Stephanopoulos: Let me just, I wanted to move to another subject, let me just clear this up, though. Do you or do you not believe that tears and sweat can transmit HIV?
Frist: It would be very hard. It would be very hard for tears and sweat, I mean, you can get virus in tears and sweat but in terms of the degree of infecting somebody, it would be very hard.
It took Stephanopoulos four questions just to get First to say that it “would be very hard” to get AIDS through tears or sweat, and he’s a doctor. If you’ll remember, Frist came to national prominence during the anthrax attacks of October 2001. If his knowledge of bio-toxins is as politically skewed as his knowledge of AIDS transmission is, this country needs a second opinion. Stat.