Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer - Article

AIDS

In 1981, the United States became the first country to identify AIDS as a distinct condition. There are currently more than a million people living with HIV or AIDS in the United States alone. Of these people, nearly a quarter are unaware of the fact that they have been given HIV by someone. This creates a high risk of onward transmission.

AIDS and its starting virus HIV affect all sectors of American society. It affects men, women, young and old, black and white, homosexual and heterosexual, and rich and poor in somewhat equal proportions. While this is true, AIDS has affected some groups of people more than it is affected others.

In the early years of the disease, AIDS was considered to be a disease only drug addicts and gay men could get. This was due mostly to its tendency to affect injecting drug users, men who engaged in sex with other men, hemophiliacs, and Haitians most commonly.

Now, however, AIDS infects thousands of gay and bisexual men as well as injecting drug users every year. Increasingly, HIV and AIDS are affecting heterosexual African Americans in greater numbers. The Latino population is increasingly affected as well.

Anyone that is aware of the fact that he or she lives with AIDS has an obligation to other and future partners to take the necessary precautions to reduce the risk of transmission. When this duty is not met, lives are affected forever. In addition, the newly infected person may not know he or she has been infected and so fails to warn future partners. This is how AIDS has become an epidemic.

Contact a Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer

If you have been diagnosed with AIDS following an encounter with a person who previously knew he or she had AIDS, contact the Chicago personal injury lawyers of Friedman & Bonebrake at 312-466-8200 to discuss your case and to determine your legal options.