In this past week's This Week w/ George S, we had the following exchange
while Frist was defending various abstinence only sex ed programs:
S: You're a doctor. Do you believe that tears and sweat can
transmit HIV?
F: I don't know. I can tell you --
S: You don't know?
F: I can tell you things like, like --
S: Wait, wait. Let me stop you there. You don't know that? You
believe that tears and sweat might be able to transmit AIDS?
F: I can tell you that HIV is not very transmissible as an element -- like
compared to smallpox -- compared to the flu, it's not.
I thought it was pretty sad that any doctor would be so poorly-informed
regarding HIV--according to the CDC, while HIV has been detected in tears and
saliva, it has been in extremely minute quantities--far below the threshold
believed to be required to be infected. And HIV has never been detected in
sweat.
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