AIDS

The red ribbon is a symbol for solidarity with people who have HIV and/or AIDS.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The late stage of the condition leaves individuals prone to opportunistic infections and tumors. Although treatments for AIDS and HIV exist to slow the virus's progression, there is no known cure. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk. This transmission can come in the form of anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

The slims is a slang term for AIDS.

AIDS in "Coming Across"

After Lingol returned from his encounter with the human Gaetan in the lands beyond the Door, he began experiencing strange fevers and weaknesses which soon worsened. Other elves with whom he interacted began to come down with the same, until it became clear that there was a terrible curse in action. Elves wasted away until life became unbearable, and they began to give up their lives in larger and larger numbers. All the while, none could determine what malevolent sorcerer had conjured this evil and why, nor why traditional healing magics could not remove the curse.

AIDS in A Different Flesh

The first major breakthrough in dealing with the AIDS epidemic came in 1988, when Dr. Peter Howard of the Terminus Disease Research Center developed a functional HIV inhibitor (HIVI) by experimenting on sims, including Matt.

Sims, humans, and shimpanses were the only species known to be affected by AIDS.

In Africa, AIDS, also called the slims, caused growing instability in several nations.

AIDS in Household Gods

By 1999, three people of Nicole Gunther's acquaintance had died of AIDS. Two were gay men, and the other was a woman friend from law school, who hadn't known until too late that the man she'd had a brief affair with was bisexual. When Nicole, transported to Carnuntum in AD 170, first heard rumors of a pestilence spreading through the Roman Empire, she hoped it wouldn't be as deadly as the AIDS virus.

AIDS in "Something Going Around"

Stan remembered witnessing cases of the newly discovered AIDS virus in the 1980s. Three or four friends of his succumbed to the virus. Two of them got brain abscesses from toxoplasmosis and went into a state of dementia before finally dying.

AIDS in The Wages of Sin

The Wasting was a devastating disease, which originated in Africa, and was brought to Europe and Asia in the 16th century by sailors from Portugal and other countries. A big factor in its original transmission was the plethora of European merchants raping enslaved women.

One of the first high profile Wasting victims in Europe was a king, Henry VIII of England, in the late 1520s. Prominent Wasting deaths over the next century included Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo and English playwright Christopher Marlowe. The disease spread to the native people of the Americas as well.

The patriarchal Eurasian nations addressed the problem of this sexually transmitted disease by sequestering women from public view. Some nations added additional safeguards. E.g., in England, people known to be infected would have the letter W branded onto their foreheads.

In the late 18th century, King Charles V of England attempted to create a Wasting vaccine, akin to the Turkish method of combatting smallpox, all to no avail.

The Roman Catholic Church did its part in the fight against the Wasting. In the late 17th century, Pope Innocent XI issued a bull calling for the abolition of slavery, an institution widely believed to be responsible for spreading the disease originally. Innocent's bull led to the phasing out of the brutal system over the next century, but the Wasting remained.

To discourage wanton sexual activity, the Church eventually condoned masturbation as a harmless alternative to fornication. An ecumenical council held by the Church in 1831 addressed the matter of whether it was permissible in God's eyes to take one's own life when the Wasting had made living unbearable. The 1831 council vetoed the attempt to lift the ban on suicide, but by 1851 there was rumor that this decision might be reversed in the near future.

By 1853, no land in the known world was free of the Wasting, although some speculative minds, such as English author Viola Williams, surmised that there might be an undiscovered land in the vast Pacific Ocean where people lived happily unencumbered by fear of the disease.