[artsrc]

> We lost the fight with viruses a decade ago. If you get infected with a deadly viral disease, like rabies, it's curtains. There's nothing any hospital can do for you except sedate you until you're dead.

The fight we have not yet one is the fight against poverty. Not many wealthy people die of rabies.

AIDS which was once fatal, is no longer, provided you can afford the treatment.

[kamaal]

Keeping you alive is not the same as living. A few would like to stay in situation where you can't do 99% of the things other humans do.

Its very common in a lot of of places in the world to ask for euthanasia in case of such diseases.

[Fomite]

Honestly, at this point HAART treatments for HIV are giving folks a near natural lifespan, and the major threats to their health are becoming diseases of old age - cancer and the like. And the years they have are fully functional.

Compared to a chronic, wasting disease that will take years of opportunistic infections before you die, that's damned good.

[parasubvert]

Magic Johnson and Andrew Sullivan have had HIV for over 20 years and seem to be handling it fairly well. Certainly a harder life than most, but that's not stopping them from living a full life.