I find the discussion at most of the symposiums I attend that involve the public or members of conservative groups, rather depressing. Of course many of these people have no direct personal contact with any disease, but they are absolutely sure that the adoption of conservative behaviors, prohibition in tobacco, drugs, and more, or abstinence and maintenance of virginity in diseases that have a sexual connection is the path of the righteous, and ultimately the healthy. Prohibition has never worked, our war on drugs is an utter failure but we still pursue it, and as a species we still look for simplistic solutions to complex problems. Sexuality is a biological imperative, and not to be changed, dictated behaviors will never be complied with, and in the end education - which the previous 8 years of our government's policy just about wiped out in this arena - has had overwhelming negative impact. It seems less easy it is to understand a subject, the more it has to be a moral issue. Part of my world of dealing with oral cancer and its paradigm in the US is dealing with all this. Logic does not work, science does not suffice, and in the end I have concluded that policy will not save people from ignorance. It's a sad conclusion to come to.

I probably have more in common with Markus than meets the eye. While I spend everyday, all day and evening working on oral cancer issues, my experience and thoughts venture to other human failings too much. His mention of the AIDS/Africa fiasco tells me this.

My Vietnam experience taught me much about human beings. I will not detail any of it here, but suffice it to say that I have a pretty intimate understanding of the horrors that one human can inflict upon another, having been on both sides of that equation. Besides Uncle Sam's guided tour of Southeast Asia, I have spent part of my life in some other third world human disasters, mostly man made, such as the killing fields of Cambodia, and a few years ago a visit to Rwanda. I actually remember Beirut when it was as modern and cosmopolitan as Paris. I have seen it since. Rubble, hate, poverty, ignorance, prejudice, have replaced an environment that once embraced the arts, education, extraordinary food, and intellectual pursuit. The commonality in all this is a pursuit of absolutes.

Ignorance, prejudice, xenophobia, religious absolutes, the list of human failings is far too long to catalog. The human suffering as a result is beyond cataloguing. I often think that by wrapping myself in one problem to the exclusion of all others, that I might find solace in science, and progress tilting against a windmill of my own choosing. But in the end it is not possible. The more things change the more they stay the same. Indeed we have not come far from the 17th century. Hell, make that the 13th century and the age of darkness.

But if there is a life saved, a burden lifted, a glimmer of progress, then there is always hope.