Toronto, March 26, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In response to a recent question to Catholic Insight magazine about national AIDS costs, Toronto physician Dr. John Shea researched the issue and a synopsis of his initial research was published in the April 2004 edition of the magazine. The research has led Dr. Shea to conclude that it is reasonable to state that AIDS could be costing the Canadian economy $6 billion per year. Dr. Shea discovered that an accurate assessment of the actual costs is difficult to determine because of under-reporting of AIDS cases, wildly varying cost estimates from different agencies and “the failure or perhaps the disinclination of the Canadian media” to adequately inform the public on this issue. Nevertheless, the retired physician, who has specialized in recent years in researching public health issues, was able to determine that this mostly sexually transmitted disease has enormous costs associated with it. The major cost factors related to AIDs were discovered to be loss of productivity due to premature death or disability and health care costs which include increasingly very expensive, on-going drug treatment for all infected persons.
AIDS is only one, although the most deadly, of many sexually transmitted diseases currently rampant throughout Canada and the US. Dr. Shea’s research did not include an examination of what are likley to also be enormous costs related to the treatment and lost productivity related to those other STD’s. See Dr. Shea’s article republished in today’s LifeSiteNews.com Special Report at https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/mar/040326a.html