HIV/AIDS at Home and Abroad

Two important articles regarding HIV/AIDS crisis, both domestically in the USA and regarding the Pope, were published today. In light of Wolverine's prior post discussing the myriad of problems that the Obama administration is attempting to address, I found these articles extremely relevant for your review.

First, the BBC announced today that Washington, D.C. is suffering from an HIV/AIDS epidemic on par with the infection rates in some African nations. The article reports that HIV is defined as a generalized and severe epidemic when the overall infection rates among residents of a specific geographic area exceed 1%. Washington, D.C. clocks in at 3% (although the real figure may be higher), putting the United States AIDS epidemic in just DC at the same level as Uganda's. The article also states that the hardest-hit segments of the population are black men and people aged between 40 and 49. Additionally, the primary means of transmission is men having sex with men, followed by heterosexual sex, and infection through drug use. For the full article, please click here.

In my opinion, this is a shame for the United States. With so much knowledge about how to prevent HIV, ways to make programs effective, and the availability of condoms and medicines to treat HIV/AIDS in the United States, one would think that the representatives in the country's capital would take far better care of the residents. The unfortunate truth is that the residents of Washington, D.C. tend to be ignored despite all the politicians and representation within the city. The United States has been a leader in the development of treatments for HIV/AIDS and as such, should be a leader in prevention as well. The entire country needs to do a far better job encouraging people to get tested and be proactive in their health. For more on HIV/AIDS prevention, see one of my previous articles: "HIV Myths Sentence Man to 35 Years."

The second article that is also the subject of the most recent "What do YOU think" poll, regards Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Africa and the statements he made regarding condoms and HIV/AIDS.

"You can't resolve it [HIV/AIDS crisis] with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease, as he answered questions submitted in advance by reporters traveling on the plane. His response was presumably also prepared in advance.

The Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms as part of its overall teaching against artificial contraception. Senior Vatican officials have advocated fidelity in marriage and abstinence from premarital sex as key weapons in the fight against AIDS.

While abstinence is the only certain way to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV, latex condoms when properly and consistently used have been found to have a 98 to 100% rate of effectiveness. Additionally, abstinence-only education programs have been found to fail where sexual intercourse was the primary means of HIV transmission. Furthermore, male circumcision has been found to be up to 60% effective in preventing HIV transmission in the aforementioned circumstances. While it is never a good idea to pursue only one policy avenue, it is a critical mistake to discount the effectiveness of condoms and the necessity of safe sexual practices.

As Rebecca Hodes, head of policy, communication, and research for the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, so aptly stated, "if the pope is serious about preventing HIV infections, he should focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how to use them. Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to hiim than the lives of Africans."

For the full article about the Pope, please click here.

Please voice your thoughts, questions, or concerns in the comments area or in the poll on the right of the screen (link provided above).

Important Headlines for 2-11-2009

While there are a lot of important things happening, these are some recent developments that are pretty important to be aware of and a few interesting things.

First of all, the current Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stated that Iran is ready for dialogue with the USA as long as it is based on mutual respect. Here are some excerpts of the speech:

"If you really want to fight terrorism, come and cooperate with the Iranian nation, which is the biggest victim of terrorism so that terrorism is eliminated. ... If you want to confront nuclear weapons ... you need to stand beside Iran so it can introduce a correct path to you," he said.

Ahmadinejad said the world was at a "crossroads" because it had been proven that military power has not been successful — a reference to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But now, he said, "the world is entering an era of dialogue and intellect."

"The new U.S. government has announced that it wants to bring changes and follow the path of dialogue. It is very clear that changes have to be fundamental and not tactical. It is clear that the Iranian nation welcomes true changes," Ahmadinejad told the crowds at the rally in Freedom Square.

This is crucial as Iran could support the United States in being a stabilizing factor for the crises in Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the USA is very determined to pursue a dialogue with Iran. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is up for election this year and former President Khatami is one of the challengers. For more information, please click here.

A second extremely important development is in the area of health care, specifically in regard to the prevention of HIV being transmitted. Some preliminary trials have found that a microbicide produced by a Massachusetts pharmaceutical company Indevus Pharmaceuticals Inc. slightly reduced HIV infection rates among its trial subjects, where approximately 3,100 women from four different countries participated. Scientists discovered a 30% lower rate of infection among women who used the Indevus-produced gel, however it is important to note that this difference is not statistically significant and that the results could have occurred by change or been the result of other contributing factors. The study has been expanded to include more women from more countries. For more information on this key development in combating HIV/AIDS, please click here.

In important domestic news, a panel of federal judges found that the overcrowding of state prisons violates the inmates' right to adequate health care. State prisons are currently operating at twice their intended capacity and measures to reduce the amount of new prisoners being compelled are being explored so that state prisons would not have to release large numbers of prisoners at once. This decision by the judges is significant as the United States currently imprisons the largest percent of its population than any other country in the world (click here). Land of the free, right? For more information about the judges' decision, please click here.

And yet another instance after the BART subway shooting where California police have shot an innocent person. Daniel Balandran was shot and killed by police gunfire in a shootout at a Papa John's Pizza in Chino, California. Police say Balandran was caught in the crossfire; his lawyer states that he was targeted. For more information, please click here.

Finally, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates annouced a review of the ban on photographing fallen soldiers' coffins, a ban that he himself asked for a few years ago. For more information, please click here.

Cure for AIDS on the Horizon?

Reuters and the Associated Press just recently released articles about a leukemia patient in Germany, also HIV positive, who received a bone marrow transplant from a donor that had an immunity towards HIV. Now, two years later, doctors cannot detect any signs of HIV and the patient appears to be HIV negative. The patient has been off of antiretroviral medications for this two year period. However, the procedure is not at all sufficient to be used as a cure for AIDS at this stage. Below are excerpts from the Associated Press' article.

This isn't the first time marrow transplants have been attempted for treating AIDS or HIV infection. In 1999, an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses reviewed the results of 32 attempts reported between 1982 and 1996. In two cases, HIV was apparently eradicated, the review reported...

As Huetter [physician treating patient for leukemia] — who is a hematologist, not an HIV specialist — prepared to treat the patient's leukemia with a bone marrow transplant, he recalled that some people carry a genetic mutation that seems to make them resistant to HIV infection. If the mutation, called Delta 32, is inherited from both parents, it prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells by blocking CCR5, a receptor that acts as a kind of gateway...

Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have inherited the mutation from both parents, and Huetter set out to find one such person among donors that matched the patient's marrow type. Out of a pool of 80 suitable donors, the 61st person tested carried the proper mutation.

Before the transplant, the patient endured powerful drugs and radiation to kill off his own infected bone marrow cells and disable his immune system — a treatment fatal to between 20 and 30 percent of recipients.

He was also taken off the potent drugs used to treat his AIDS. Huetter's team feared that the drugs might interfere with the new marrow cells' survival. They risked lowering his defenses in the hopes that the new, mutated cells would reject the virus on their own.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases in the U.S., said the procedure was too costly and too dangerous to employ as a firstline cure. But he said it could inspire researchers to pursue gene therapy as a means to block or suppress HIV.

"It helps prove the concept that if somehow you can block the expression of CCR5, maybe by gene therapy, you might be able to inhibit the ability of the virus to replicate," Fauci said.

So, while not a cure for HIV/AIDS all together, these developments do offer hope that a cure is possible with more research and trials.

For the full article from the Associated Press, please click here.

Greetings from the Bronx

According to CNN, today the New York City Department of Health announced "A three-year initiative will seek to give HIV tests to everyone in the Bronx from age 18 to 64." 

The announcement comes on the heels of a report released Wednesday that found a high rate of "unsafe sexual behavior" in New York City.

"Of most concern, among men who have sex with men who had five or more partners in the past year, 36 percent did not use condoms consistently," Health Commissioner Thomas Freidan said in a statement released with the report. "This is a core group which is at high risk for getting, and spreading, HIV."

HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, is the virus that causes AIDS.

The Bronx has been particularly hard-hit, according to the report. A quarter of New Yorkers infected with HIV -- more than 21,000 people -- live in the Bronx, and the borough reports a third of the city's AIDS deaths each year.

The Bronx already leads the way with HIV testing, with 68 percent of adults -- compared with 64 percent in Manhattan and 56 percent in Brooklyn -- reporting having been tested at some point in their lives. But the new initiative seeks to reach the 250,000 Bronx adults who have never been tested -- some of whom may be unknowingly living with HIV.  'New infections are still occurring at epidemic rates,' Bronx borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr. said in a written statement, "especially among women and people of color."

According to city officials, one in four people with HIV in the Bronx do not know that they are infected, and one in four of those who find out that they are HIV-positive also learn that they already have full-blown AIDS.

For the full CNN article, click here.

Clearly, the United States' encounter with the HIV/AIDS epidemic is not over.  Preventative measures must be taken, such as education and awareness that includes comprehensive sex education programs in middle and high schools.  

Since education is the biggest factor in preventing HIV infection from spreading, below I am going to repeat some information last seen in an earlier blog-post of mine, "HIV Myths Sentence Man to 35 Years."These are taken from Heroes Project India's FAQs, but the same information is easily available through other HIV/AIDS-prevention organizations.

• Abstain from vaginal, anal, and oral sex.
• Use condoms.
  
• Effectiveness: Studies have shown that latex condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV transmission when used consistently and correctly. These studies looked at uninfected people considered to be at very high risk of infection because they were involved in sexual relationships with HIV-infected people. The studies found that even with repeated sexual contact, 98-100 percent of those people who used latex condoms correctly and consistently did not become infected.

• If lubricant is used, it must be water-based. Lubricants containing oil (such as Vaseline) might cause latex condoms to break.
• If spermicidal (birth control) foams and jellies are used, they must be used along with condoms, not in place of condoms. The effectiveness of spermicidal in preventing HIV is unknown.
• If you shoot drugs, seek help. And never share needles.
• Avoid mixing alcohol or other drugs with sexual activities-they might cloud one's judgment and lead to engagement in unsafe sexual practices.

For more about HIV/AIDS and prevention, please visit the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

HIV Myths Sentence Man to 35 Years

As reported by the Associated Press:

DALLAS - An HIV-positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Dallas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Because a jury found that Willie Campbell used his saliva as a deadly weapon, the 42-year-old will have to serve half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. He was sentenced Wednesday.

Campbell was being arrested in May 2006 for public intoxication when he began resisting and kicking inside the patrol car, Dallas police office Dan Waller testified.

Campbell was convicted of harassment of a public servant.

This is absolutely idiotic on so many levels. First of all, Campbell was drunk and therefore it is questionable as to his actual intent in spitting in the officer's face. More than likely, he was angry at being arrested and expressed his anger by spitting, not with the premeditated intent of infecting or killing the officer. Secondly, the officer was at NO RISK of contracting HIV/AIDS through the saliva of an HIV positive man. The jury therefore sentenced a man to 35 years in prison for spitting, an act which didn't harm anyone, only insulted the officer. If the jury wanted to punish Campbell for anything, it should have been for being publicly intoxicated.

The jury's decision came from gross misunderstandings about HIV/AIDS which will be corrected through this post. These are taken from Heroes Project India's FAQs, but the same information is easily available through other HIV/AIDS-prevention organizations.1) There are no risks involved working in close physical contact with an infected person. You may share the same telephone with other people in your office or work side by side in a crowded factory with other HIV infected persons, even share the same cup of tea, but this will not expose you to the risk of contracting the infection. Being in contact with dirt and sweat will also not give you the infection.

2) This virus is spread through the blood, semen, and vaginal discharges of an HIV-infected person. People can get HIV infection when they have contact with these fluids. This can happen by engaging in specific sexual and/or drug use practices. Also, HIV-infected women can pass the virus to their newborns during pregnancy and childbirth. Lastly, some people who received blood products before March 1985 got infected blood. Now all donated blood is being screened for HIV. Many people do not know they have this virus and therefore can unknowingly pass it to others. This is because they usually look and feel fine for many years after HIV infection occurs.

• Sex and HIV:
  Both men and women, including teenagers, can pass HIV to a sex partner, whether he or she is the same sex or the opposite sex. This can occur during unprotected anal, vaginal, and oral (mouth) sex through contact with infected semen, blood, or vaginal secretions.
• Drugs, Sex and HIV:
  People can get infected with HIV through sharing needles, cookers, or cottons (works) with someone who is infected. This can happen even when the person passing the works looks clean and healthy. Some people stopped shooting and/or sharing works many years ago and do not realize that they may have become infected with HIV back when they were still shooting drugs. They also may not realize they can pass it through unprotected sex now.
• Pregnancy and HIV:
  Treatment during pregnancy can help an HIV-infected woman protect her baby from becoming infected. Without treatment, more than a third of all babies born to HIV-infected women will have the virus and eventually get sick.
  

3) As made quite obvious in the last two points, you CANNOT contract the HIV/AIDS virus through saliva, tears, and sweat. It is ONLY transmitted through blood, semen, vaginal discharge, and breast milk.

4) Additionally, an HIV positive person may not necessarily have AIDS. Since 1992, scientists have estimated that about half the people with HIV develop AIDS within 10 years after becoming infected. This time varies greatly from person to person and can depend on many factors, including a person's health status and their health-related behaviors.

Today there are medical treatments that can slow down the rate at which HIV weakens the immune system. There are other treatments that can prevent or cure some of the illnesses associated with AIDS, though the treatments do not cure AIDS itself. As with other diseases, early detection offers more options for treatment and preventative health care.

5) No discussion on HIV/AIDS is complete, however, without mention of methods of prevention.

• Abstain from vaginal, anal, and oral sex.
• Use condoms.
  
• Effectiveness: Studies have shown that latex condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV transmission when used consistently and correctly. These studies looked at uninfected people considered to be at very high risk of infection because they were involved in sexual relationships with HIV-infected people. The studies found that even with repeated sexual contact, 98-100 percent of those people who used latex condoms correctly and consistently did not become infected.

• If lubricant is used, it must be water-based. Lubricants containing oil (such as Vaseline) might cause latex condoms to break.
• If spermicidal (birth control) foams and jellies are used, they must be used along with condoms, not in place of condoms. The effectiveness of spermicidal in preventing HIV is unknown.
• If you shoot drugs, seek help. And never share needles.
• Avoid mixing alcohol or other drugs with sexual activities-they might cloud one's judgment and lead to engagement in unsafe sexual practices.

For more about HIV/AIDS and prevention, please visit the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

Click here for the Heroes Project India FAQs.

For the AP's report on Campbell, click here.

Sex and the Kiddies

As the United States government is finally figuring out, abstinence only programs for teaching sex education clearly do not work. This should be no surprise but for those that couldn't see the obvious, even a quick analysis of other countries' policies would more than clear up the issue. For example, while the United States experienced its HIV/AIDS outbreak in the 1980s (with Ronald Reagan failing to attempt to act until 1985), other countries experience the virus' effects to a far greater degree and thus, their governments were under even more pressure to act quickly.

Take the case of Uganda. Initially, Uganda was active in efforts to stem the disease's devastating effects. However, after a change in administrations, the government cut back on comprehensive sex education and distribution of birth control methods. As one could expect, this lead to a rise in the number of people infected with the virus. However, when Uganda elected a new president, one who enacted comprehensive sex education programs and made combating HIV/AIDS a priority, the number of people infected decreased significantly. The United States government has all of this data, but President Bush's HIV/AIDS programs for Africa largely focus on abstinence only programs even though these are proven to be far less effective and with far greater costs to human life.

Classy as ever, Jon Stewart tackles the issue of providing an alternative solution that compromises between rigid abstinence only and comprehensive sex education programs.



Take a hint, Congress. Teaching the obvious, proven-to-work comprehensive sex education programs shouldn't be so difficult.