The End of the Road

Well folks, we've come to the end of our blogging journey this week. I have to admit, when we first started this assignment I was a little bummed that I was stuck with blogging when I felt I could get a much more hands on experience talking with a pen pal or in the chat room. Attending the infected panels changed my mind about that for one. It is hard to ask people incredibly personal questions about HIV because your not sure how they will take it. Furthermore, the blogging experience has helped shaped my inquiry methods. The lax guidelines for our postings has made it so that we can research and find answers to any questions or hypothesis we had about HIV. More often I find myself researching into things that I wonder about in everyday life.

Did You Know...???

Its Spring Time, and that means allergy season! As if I don't enjoy my pollen covered car enough, I'm even more thrilled with my bouts of sneezing attacks and sinus inflammation. So this got me thinking, does HIV have any effect on allergies or vice versa? You would think, the HIV would increase the sensitivity of allergens as allergies themselves are an over reaction of the immune system to false antigens (i.e dust). On the other hand, could an allergic reaction be too much for a suppressed immune system to handle?

In an article in POZ magazine in 2008 thanks to antiretroviral medications, sinus problems are no longer a life and death matter. Untreated allergies that can lead to sinusitis can sometimes mean that bacteria or another virus begins to reproduce in the sinuses once they are congested. There are no significant studies that show that HIV people suffer from more sinus infections than HIV negative people, especially with the use of ARTs.

Reference:

-web: Spring Awakening: HIV, Allergies, and Sinusitis. April 2008. POZ magazine. Retrieved 4/9/10 from, http://www.poz.com/articles/hiv_allergies_sinuses_401_14336.shtml.

What Health Reform Means for AIDS

Coming up to the home stretch of the semester, things are getting crazy. While classes like physics and statistics torture my mind, I appreciate the knowledge that I have taken from this HIV course. Unlike physics which some people argue is quite handy, I find the information I've taken from this class to be more so of a life skill. While I doubt I will ever really care about the force a raindrop has on your head (which I might add would go right through your head without air resistance) or the frictional force of your car tires on the road, I will care about and use the facts about HIV on a weekly basis at the very least. It has given me so much more than that. It has provided me with the knowledge to protect myself and taught me about a virus that is taking hold of the whole world.

Did You Know...???

In the past month with the health reform fighting its way through Congress, the new implements make way for a change for those with HIV.

1. All Americans must buy health insurance. This means that the government is required to provide subsidies for those too poor to afford the coverage.

2. Bans insurance companies from terminating coverage on people with "pre-existing conditions". This means people with HIV cannot have their coverage terminated because of their health concerns.

3. The reform prohibits a life time cap on the coverage provided within a person's lifetime. This is especially good for people with chronic illness' (i.e HIV)

4. It expands coverage of Medicaid/Medicare to people with income below poverty line. These adults compromise of 37% of uninsured people in America (many of which are HIV+). (Expanding Medicaid)

Reference List:

-Web: The Black AIDS Institute Applauds Congress' Passage of Historic Health Care Reform Bill. March 22, 2010. The Body.com. Retrieved 4/6/10 from, http://www.thebody.com/content/policy/art56015.html.

-Web: Expanding Medicaid: Coverage for Low Income Adults Under Health Reform. Feb 22, 2010. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved 4/6/10 from, http://www.kff.org/healthreform/8052.cfm.

"The First Step Toward Change is Awareness. The Second Step is Acceptance." -Dr. Nathaniel Branden

With each week that goes by, I feel like I am becoming one with the pandemic that they call AIDS even though I myself am not HIV/AIDS positive. With all of the intensive information that we are subjected to each week, AIDS has implanted itself into our lives as well. Even if we didn't have this course, why shouldn't it? AIDS affects everyone: your neighbors, teachers, friends, lovers, children, co workers, peers. It is no longer just about protecting yourself to create one less person in the fight, but also about learning for the sake of progression; for the sake of all of those people. AIDS has existed for over thirty years now without a cure or vaccine. It has existed longer than many other infections that have breezed through. I say "breezed" because these infections often receive the attention and precaution that all contagious/infectious diseases need to squander it. AIDS has yet to receive such diligence. So why shouldn't we be the generation to change things? Even for those us not directly affected by AIDS or not directly participating in the pandemic, knowledge is the fundamental key. Just understanding the virus (like an enemy) leaves it's tactics unsurprising and it's existence vulnerable to defeat.

Did You Know...??

We all know stigma, and religious stigma especially takes a toll on the way HIV positive people are viewed. Earlier this month, Representatives of 40 different religious and faith groups including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism met in a two day retreat in the Netherlands. There the members signed a "personal commitment to action" which requires them to be clear in their teachings about discriminating against those living with HIV. This is important according to UNAIDS because religious acceptance will empower "solidarity" among the communities that follow them and "ensure people living with HIV are being treated with respect and dignity." However, the draw back is religion is having a hard time incorporating public health issues when discussing morality and spirituality because HIV prevention such as condoms and men to men sex is considered immoral.

Reference:

-web: Religious Leaders Vow to Fight HIV/AIDS Stigma, Discrimination. March 25, 2010. MedicalNewsToday.com. Retrieved 3/31/10 from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/183480.php.

Russia for the Gold

While many are excited about the chance to eat M&M's in the simulation, my thoughts are turned away from the enjoyable little candies and the fact that I am terrible at following a scheduled pill regiment. The purpose of the simulation comes into play after all. From everything that I've learned so far about HIV/AIDS, I appreciate the fact that I am a healthy and young individual that does not have to bear this particularly sorrowful responsiblity. I like to think of AIDS in the way that Catherine Wyatt-Morley described it during an excerpt from her diary AIDS Memoir: Diary of a HIV-Positive Mother. AIDS is much like a cross that some people are forced to bear. Those who are healthy and bear no burden should not judge them based off of AIDS because sooner or later, we will all bear a cross of our own.

Did You Know...??

Over the decades since HIV/AIDS was first discovered, it has changed hands as too what groups become the largest group of newly infected or most at risk. In America and most of the Western world we have seen that gay's are the most affected. However while areas like the Western countries and Sub Saharan Africa which are taking steps to prevent and reduce newly infected rates, Eastern Europe and Central Asia are taking the lead. Unlike America where the highest rate is passed MSM (men having sex with men), Russia's transmission acounts almost solely from Injecting drug users and women who have sex with those drug users. According to avert.com, 90% of Eastern Europe's new infections come from Russia and Ukraine alone. In 2007, 65% of newly infected cases were from male drug injectors. 83% of all of the people who know their infection history account for transmission through sharing needles. In 2007, 44% of newly infected women recieved the virus through having sex with men who were HIV positive through drug use with another 35% infected directly through drug use.

Reference List:

-Web: HIV and AIDS in Russia Eastern Europe & Central Asia. Updated 3/11/10. Avert.org. Retrieved 3/24/10 from http://www.avert.org/aids-russia.htm.

AZT, synonomous with Cancer?

Spring break has given us time away from classes, and my HIV results have given me time away from the world of AIDS even just for a little while. Although Teach's intention was to heighten our awareness by making us wait the full two weeks, I didn't have too much of a problem. However, I will admit, the prospect was always lingering over my head. On the way home in the car after getting my results (negative), a variety of thoughts streamed through my mind. For one, I was happy to think of my blood as "clean" in regards to HIV because in other ways it is not. I was happy to no longer have to deal with the idea of "what if"; now I had definite results. And while part of me was also happy that I can continue my life without too much of a fight, I remembered and always will remember those that do because of AIDS.

Did You Know...??

On December 18Th, 2009, Zidovudine or otherwise known as AZT was added to the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment list of environmental toxins known to cause cancer and reproductive toxicity. In the process of stopping the integral process of the HIV virus into the host DNA, the medicine causes irreversible damage to the host DNA and mitochondria responsible for cell division. You must also keep in mind that cancer is defined as uncontrolled cell division. According to the official website: AZT causes Cancer, "more HIV positive women in South Africa (where widespread use of AZT occurs) are giving birth to brain- damaged children. Sometimes it shows up years after birth in the form of developmental disabilities." Although AZT remains the most common drug to treat HIV/AIDS, no maximum dosage of toxicity has been warranted.

Reference List:

-Web: AZT Causes Cancer. Feb 27, 2010. Heal London. Retrieved 3/16/10 from, http://www.heallondon.org/health-and-well-being/93-azt-causes-cancer-official.html.

-Photo: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/aidsephemera/images/azt.jpg.

If con is the opposite of pro, then is Congress the opposite of Progress?

When I think about what aspect of HIV that I have taken the most from, I must think about what I believed before this course and those elements that have changed along the way. Prior to, most of my knowledge was limited to the scientific fundamentals. What I did not understand is why in the twenty fist century when we had a cure or vaccine for nearly anything, was there not something to prevent the inevitable fate of AIDS? This is where this class comes into play. With all of the information from the first hand documentaries, diaries, and textbooks I've found that one of the most influential factor behind the AIDS epidemic is government. The future of AIDS and those living with it depends on the funding, law passing, prevention, education, research, and many more as the list goes on and on. It essentially is because of the government and their inability to mobilize that we do have an AIDS epidemic. It is because of their standards and personal morality (i.e Jessie Helms, President Reagan) that stigma exists so publically. It shows me that while the science regard is incredibly important, it is just as important to follow policies in government in respect to AIDS since its role is so key to the allocation and progression of medicine.

Did You Know...??

While in class we have learned about CRF's or circulating recombiant forms of HIV, did you know there may be a possibility of superinfection? Superinfection or otherwise known as reinfection, occurs when an already HIV positive person acquires a second different strand of HIV after establishing the existence of the first strand. Superinfection is less common to interpret and often confused with co-infection. Co-infection is when a person acquires two different strands of HIV from multiple partners simultaneously before a seroconversion is established. More importantly though, the people MOST at risk for superinfection are newly infected or those with a low plasma viral load. Oppositely, those with detectable viral loads are less at risk. This is explained by the fact that those with a detectable load, have less cells to target. Unlike their undetectable counterparts, their antiviral immune response is much more active and does not allow the virus to sneak by so passively. (Center for AIDS Prevention Study)

Reference List:

What Do We Know About AIDS Superinfection? Revised May, 2006. Center for AIDS Prevention Study. Retrieved March 10, 2010 from, http://www.caps.ucsf.edu/pubs/FS/revsuperinfection.php.
Photo: http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/hiv-virus-pictures.

Mid Semester

As this week comes to an end, I've had more time to absorb the event and the information from the crazy week before. The movies shed new light on the short duration that HIV has existed in this world. It's truely amazing how little we knew about this thirty years ago and how far we have come with ART's and medications to slow and box in the virus. It is also amazing how little society has grown from its affect. Most of this I feel, can be explained by the inability of schools to educate about AIDS without being about to discuss the high risk behaviors involved with it. While some steps have been taken such as promoting condoms in the anscence of abstinence, other topics such as homosexuality (which is on the rise) and drug use (which some may eventually fall victim to) are not talked about. The movie Age of AIDS shed light on the chronological history of AIDS and how it has seeped into nearly every demographic and region of the world. It was fascinating to watch the evolution of this virus unlike anything else.

Did You Know... About False Positives??


We already know that it is possible for people within the window period to test negative when actually being positive for HIV, it is also possible for the reverse. The common screening test, ELISA works by targeting certain anitbodies and then yeilding a positive if the target is found. However, the body can sometimes has different antibodies that trick the test, yeilding a positive when in fact the person is negative. These can include antibodies in instances of tuberculosis, malaria, and rheumatoid arthritis (cross- reactivity with other retroviruses). Other can include contamination at the lab, pregnancy, or a history of drug use. The chances of this happening are minimal: 1-5 per 100,000 assays. Should a person test positive, a Western Blot test should immediatly be taken to ensure the positive is in fact positive. This test works mainly as a confirmation test that specifically targets the HIV virus.

Add On

Freddie Mercury


Lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Died on November 24, 1991 by AIDS related bronchopneumonia just 24 hrs. after the public disclosure of his status.








Arthur Ashe

First and only African American to win the Wimbledon's men singles to date, and one of two African American men to win the Grand Slams Title. Ashe contracted HIV through blood transfusions recieved during heart surgery and later died on February 6, 1993 from AIDS related toxoplasmosis.





Reference List:

1. Jones, Liz. Causes of a False Positive. eHow. retrieved March 3, 2010 from, http://www.ehow.com/about_5045612_causes-false-positive-hiv-test.html.

2. Arthur Ashe. Arthurashe.org. Retrieved March 3, 2010

3. Photo: Biographicon. Retrieved March 3, 2010 from, http://www.biographicon.com/view/ah91h.

4. Freddie Mercury Biography. Retrieved March 3, 2010 from http://www.freddie.ru/e/bio/.

5. Photo: Style Inspiraion: Mr. Mercury. Retrieved March 3, 2010 from :http://www.ultrapdx.com/zero/2007/12/18/style-inspiration-mr-mercury/.