Trump Doesn't Know the Difference Between HIV and HPV

Trump Doesn't Know the Difference Between HIV and HPV

By Vrinda Jagota
May 18, 2018

Every day seems to bring about a new political frenzy, and today's reason for alarm is the news that Trump doesn't know the difference between HPV and HIV.

HPV is the country's most common sexually transmitted infection, affecting 79 million Americans and potentially leading to cervical, anal, and oropharyngeal cancer. HIV, which is spread via sex, blood transfusions, or from mother to child during birth or breastfeeding, is a virus that leads to AIDS if untreated. There is a grim history of presidents, especially Ronald Reagan, remaining willfully ignorant about HIV and AIDs, which affects millions in the US and globally, because they were thought to only affect gay people.

Bill Gates told a crowd at a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation event that he met Trump in December of 2016 and March of 2017, and on both occasions, Trump asked him to explain the difference between the two diseases which Gates aptly noted, "are rarely confused with each other." Gates also said he had to advise Trump not to commission a team to "look into ill effects of vaccines," and that the president refers to himself in the third person.

Gates went on to say the Trump was oddly fixated on Gates' 22-year-old daughter's appearance and that it made Melinda Gates uncomfortable.

Phew. That's... a lot of unfortunate gossip for a Friday afternoon.

Our president, everyone!

Image via BFA