Your health: AIDS and religion

Local rabbi to present Jewish perspective at international conference

By Yaffi Spodek

Issue of Nov. 7, 2008 / 9 Cheshvan 5769

A Nov. 16 symposium in Moscow, organized by the Russian government, will explore different religious approaches to treatment of the HIV/AIDS virus. Rabbi Dr. Aaron Glatt, an infectious diseases doctor and assistant to the rabbi at the Young Israel of Woodmere, has been invited to discuss the Jewish physician’s approach to patients suffering from the debilitating and deadly disease.

“I will be talking about how Jewish religion requires every individual to be treated with compassion regardless of whatever aveiros they do,” Rabbi Glatt explained. “A physician is not supposed to be a judge, jury or executioner, while at the same time Jewish physicians, and certainly Jewish religion, do not condone behaviors that are contrary to halacha and good health.”

Rabbi Glatt was asked to address the conference by Russia’s chief rabbi Berel Lazar and Project Kesher, an advocacy and human rights organization in the Commonwealth of Independent States of the former Soviet Union, with a grassroots movement of 160 Jewish women’s groups and close to 90 multi-ethnic, multi-faith coalitions of women. Outside of Africa, the Ukraine has the fastest growing HIV/AIDS population and Project Kesher women’s groups are actively engaged in raising awareness and initiating programs there to prevent AIDS from spreading.

As the president and CEO of New Island Hospital in Bethpage, and a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Association of America, Rabbi Glatt has published extensively on the subject and has been treating patients for decades. His position as an ordained Rabbi also qualifies him even further to speak at the conference about the Jewish and halachic approach to the issue.

“The activities that [HIV-infected] people might be engaging in are k’neged halacha, but that does not and should not prevent physicians from treating patients with compassion,” Rabbi Glatt said, describing the Jewish approach. “There is also nothing wrong with the decision to educate patients that what they’re doing is medically wrong and dangerous. “

Though most of Rabbi Glatt’s patients are not Orthodox or even Jewish, he does try to provide them with spiritual advice.

“The doctor’s job is not to be the rav, but he can be a spiritual source of guidance under certain circumstances,” he emphasized. “People can advise in the appropriate setting.”

Rabbi Glatt also noted that other religions have entirely different approaches in determining what is allowed and not allowed in the treatment of HIV-infected patients, pointing out that some of them are stricter in some ways but more lenient in others and that there is a wide range of opinions.

HIV — Human Immunodeficiency Virus — is a retrovirus that infects cells of the human immune system, destroying or impairing their function. Though there are no symptoms present during the early stages of infection, the immune system gets weaker as it progresses, making the victim more susceptible to infection.

AIDS — Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome — is the most advanced stage of the HIV virus. It can take between 10 to 15 years for a person with HIV to develop AIDS and anti-retroviral drugs can slow down the process further.

An Oct. 3 article in Newsday reported that the number of people infected with the AIDS virus increased 11 percent in the United States between 2003 to 2006, as better treatments have prolonged their lives. According to scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the HIV population in the United States rose to 1.1 million in 2006 from an estimated 994,000 in 2003, as revealed in a study published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.