Is it possible to develop a product without this stigma, or better, one that is felt to enhance pleasure? If so, would such a product lead to substantial benefits for global health, both in terms of reducing the incidence of unplanned pregnancies and in prevention of infection with HIV or other STIs?A statement on the Grand Challenges for Global Health website • Discussing an initiative for a next-generation condom which recently received $100,000 in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative, despite its potential to help global health worldwide, understandably leads to some jokes. “To say that Bill Gates is calling for new development on high-tech condoms might be a bit of an overstatement,” snarks PC Magazine’s David Murphy, “given that it conjures up the idea of Wi-Fi-friendly prophylactics running a stripped-down version of Windows 8 or something to that effect – we’ll let you make your own jokes on whether they’d be touch-friendly.”
A baby girl in Mississippi who was born with HIV has been cured after very early treatment with standard drug therapy, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday, in a potentially ground-breaking case that could offer insights on how to eradicate HIV infection in its youngest victims.
The child’s story is the first account of an infant achieving a so-called functional cure, a rare event in which a person achieves remission without the need for drugs and standard blood tests show no signs that the virus is making copies of itself.
Huge story that could potentially redefine the fight against AIDS.
Democracy In (NSFW) Action: Naked protesters gathered inside of Speaker of the House John Boehner’s office today to voice their displeasure with potential “fiscal cliff” budget cuts that could target HIV/AIDS-funding. To our knowledge, Speaker Boehner has not commented on the incident at this time. Our hats off to the recently rebooted Digg for finding this one. source
I should have contracted HIV in the 1980s and died in the 1990s, just like [Queen lead singer] Freddie Mercury, just like [actor] Rock Hudson. Every day I wonder, how did I survive?Sir Elton John • During his speech at the International AIDS conference on Tuesday morning. John spoke on his own battles with cocaine addiction, societal stigmas of those with HIV/AIDS, and recognized the $15 billion President’s Emergency AIDS Relief fund created by President George W. Bush while calling on the United States to do more for its people. If this country wanted to end HIV infections at home it could do so in a heartbeat,” said Sir Elton, adding, “All it takes is a bit more funding and a bit more understanding. All it takes is dialogue.” source (via • follow)
Police in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco are confiscating condoms from sex workers and transgender women, undermining health department campaigns to reduce HIV.
Don’t take away people’s condoms!
Read more and watch our interviews of sex workers here.
© 2012 Human Rights Watch
Questionable approach of the day. Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 300 people in putting together this report, and some of the findings are fairly shocking. “Criminalizing HIV prevention undermines human rights and endangers the public health,” said Human Rights Watch senior health researcher Megan McLemore.
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…and thus we get to why it’s usually not recommended to take these tests if you’re known to be in a low-risk group (in low-risk groups, after all, almost every positive is a false positive). Also, this is why you should always take your positive results into a clinic for a confirmatory test before you start panicking. Always always always always. Because unless you’re in a high-risk group, you’re almost certainly looking at a false positive.
Much more to it than that — that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Read sanguinarysanguinity’s full take on the matter over here. (original post here)
(Source: BBC)
Home HIV test approved by FDA: Good news for those who want to take an HIV test in the privacy of their own home. The Food and Drug Administration has approved an over-the-counter version of the OraQuick HIV test, which checks your saliva to see if you test positive for the disease that causes AIDS. The company behind the test, OraSure, doesn’t know a price, but says it’ll be below $60 — and hopefully available in 30,000 drug stores across the country. The FDA warns, though, that the test isn’t 100 percent accurate. OraSure notes that the test is about 92 percent accurate for positive results, and 99 percent accurate for negative results. (photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Because Walgreens does a variety of testing there is no stigma basically associated with coming here. You could be getting a cholesterol test or an HIV test - it’s the same clinic room for all of our testing and immunizations. It’s very private.Washington D.C.-area Walgreens manager Bethany Kuechenmeister • Discussing the CDC’s new HIV-testing pilot program, which debuted in the Foggy Bottom location she manages last month, and the benefits that the program offers for those who worry about the social implications of getting tested. In honor of National HIV Testing Day, the company is offering free HIV tests, from 3pm-7pm until this Friday, at locations in 20 major cities across the country. source (via • follow)
HIV in Washington, D.C. compared to African nations
If Washington, D.C. were a nation in Africa, it would rank 23rd out of 54 countries in percentage of people with HIV.
Long an issue for the District. One that seems difficult to fight; this is a city strongly split into haves and have-nots.
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“This is definitely a milestone in this long battle for safety in adult films, but we still have a long way to go,” said AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein, whose group has fought for the measure for years. The industry has long had trouble with the spread of AIDS.
» How that money would help: The Obama administration has a couple of goals for that money. First, they plan to get antiretroviral drugs to 2 million more people by 2013. Second, they plan to give the drugs to 1.5 million more HIV-positive pregnant women, in an effort to prevent the disease from getting passed on to their children. The president, with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush by his side, is announcing the renewed anti-AIDS initiatives (as a part of World AIDS Day) as we write this.
20 years ago Monday, Magic Johnson told the world he had HIV. At the time, the disease had an expiration date — one that millions of people have died fighting. Johnson, however, has managed to beat the odds, thanks to medical breakthroughs. Not that it was an easy announcement at the time — even for a man of his celebrity and good-guy stature, it required some walking on eggshells. ”I knew I was going to suffer,” he says. “But if this could help someone else who was suffering, then I would do it.” But in the end, Johnson’s reputation won out, allowing him to use his celebrity to encourage funding for research into stopping the disease for everyone — not just him. The L.A. Times has a couple of great stories up about Magic. Read them both. They’re worth it.
Dr. [Jacques] Pepin’s book, The Origin of AIDS, is gaining attention for some of its surprising conclusions. He collects evidence that the virus spread not only through sexual activity but, crucially, through well-meaning European doctors and nurses fighting tropical diseases in pre-independence Africa.
They used syringes and needles to inject hundreds of patients a day in medical campaigns against diseases such as sleeping sickness, tuberculosis and leprosy. In the process, Dr. Pepin believes, they helped turn a virus infecting a lone ape hunter in Africa into a global epidemic with some 32 million victims.
“The chances that this hunter alone could launch an epidemic are very low,” Dr. Pepin said. “But there are all the chances in the world that he went to be treated for a tropical disease and a little HIV stayed in the syringe. Then the next patient was injected with it intravenously.”
The early spread of AIDS is an interesting topic — Wikipedia has a number of articles about people infected with the disease, allegedly and confirmed, prior to 1981 — including a man who was referred to as “patient zero” in Randy Shilts’ landmark “And the Band Played On,” an argument that’s long been a point of contention. It’s possible that we’ll never know the true roots of the AIDS virus, but research like Pepin’s “The Origin of AIDS” is fascinating.
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