Edwin, I agree with you that education and treatment are key to reducing future infections. But I'm not convinced this campaign will lead anyone in that direction. I hear you when you say that "a scare tactic is justified for awareness," but I don't see this campaign raising awareness about the specific key things that you've identified here. Further, while it's been shown that scare tactics can have an initial impact on people, studies show they don't have a lasting effect on changing people's behaviour.

I also should have exanded on something else and that is the following paragraph, ""Did the campaigners not think twice about wrongly comparing human sexual behaviour to the Holocaust, and inappropriately demonizing people with HIV in the process?" Syms asks. "The insistence on seeing HIV transmission as villainy obscures the most stubborn fact about the epidemic -- far from being the realm of malevolent or sociopathic people, HIV is transmitted through behaviours that are otherwise completely natural and normal, such as penetrative intercourse -- or behaviours that may often be hard to control rather than 'intentional,' such as needle sharing in the context of addiction."

If people don't understand the ad campaign, then our education system is truly failing to teach our students in the area of the English Language because the metaphor is not that AIDS is equivalent to the holocaust, it is comparing AIDS to unsympathetic, compassionless, reckless and villainous governmental regimes. And that is why I say that GWB and RR are missing from the picture.

Dave, I do appreciate your point regarding Bush et al, but here's the thing: comparing HIV to "unsympathetic, compassionless, reckless and villainous governmental regimes" (as opposed to comparing it simply to the Holocaust alone) is a mistake.

HIV is a virus, an unthinking biological entity and it bears no relationship or comparison to any of those things. And neither do people who have the virus. That's what people need to understand, and this campaign seems to be leading people to think the opposite. And that won't help anyone!

When you say, "this campaign seems to be leading people to think the opposite," it appears as though you are agreeing with me that our education systems are failing in teaching interpretation of metaphors and different rhetorical devices.

When I saw the ad campaign, I personally thought it was genius, and I don't see it as people with HIV/AIDS being demonized but the virus itself (just as it is demonizing mass murderers such as Hitler, Hussein, and Stalin.)

Perhaps if people are interpreting the wrong message, then maybe you are correct and the ad campaign should be changed. But personally, I didn't and still don't interpret it the same way you are.

My point is that the metaphor is not valid. HIV is not a "murderer" because that implies intent, and a non-human biological entity does not possess a consciousness and is not capable of intent in the same way that human beings are.

First I must admit, I JUST went over to the site and saw the television ad (and I can see the point that you are making,) and over to your site, but I still see the metaphor is valid.

It appears (to me at least) as though you are confusing metaphors and analogies. You can use metaphors for just about anything, and that is what they are doing here (as I interpret it.) For example, a friend has the personality of a door knob. What does either of those (his personality and a door knob) have in common? Absolutely nothing.

The campaign isn't arguing that if you engage in unsafe sexual practices that you will get AIDS, but that you may get AIDS. I do agree with you in that HIV and AIDS are two completely different sets of circumstances, and we do indeed need full comprehensive sex education.

(As a side note: are you really implying that any of these men actually had a consciousness about them? - KIDDING......sort of.)