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Ned Flanders
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Now my dilemma is a bit more clear (see the thread below)
http://bkkx.com/cgi-bin/forum/topic.cgi?forum=12&topic=1399&start=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/health/12safe.html
Rare Strain of H.I.V. Raises Fear of a Resurgence in AIDS Cases
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: February 12, 2005
An old fear returned yesterday to those fighting the spread of AIDS among gay men: fear itself.
For a decade, AIDS educators and activists have been fighting the growing complacency among gay men about the risks of unprotected sex, complacency fueled by medications that have drastically reduced the death rate of those infected; by the use of the Internet to enable casual sex; by the growing popularity of inhibition-lowering recreational drugs; and by the sheer emotional fatigue of those who had grown tired of confronting death.
But yesterday's announcement that a New York City man had contracted - and possibly spread - a deadly rare strain of fast-developing and drug-resistant H.I.V. may have the potential to change perceptions yet again.
"There's a growing perception that H.I.V. is a chronic and manageable disease, and so there's less fear of it," said Jay Laudato, executive director of the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in Manhattan. "If anything, the case today should remind us how fearful we should be."
Other AIDS activists echoed his sentiment. "For the last 10 years," said Ana Oliveira, executive director of Gay Men's Health Crisis, "it's been challenging to create relevant and attractive ways to talk to the gay and bisexually active community about affirming life, preventing H.I.V., in ways that are not old. The dialogue just got more complicated."
According to a 2003 survey of sexually active New Yorkers by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, only 45 percent of men who had sex with men reported using condoms, though they were three times more likely to have risk factors associated with contracting H.I.V. than sexually active New Yorkers as a whole.
"There's a lot of evidence that gay men have backed away from safe sex practices. And as a nation, both gay men and the rest of us have become much more complacent about AIDS," said Dr. Thomas Farley, an expert in community health at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. "That sets us up for new sexually transmitted infections to emerge, and for any old ones to re-emerge."
The rare drug-resistant strain poses a particular challenge for activists serving groups in which contracting H.I.V. carries with it a much greater stigma than it does among openly gay men, leading people to avoid even being tested for the virus.
"The African-American and African immigrant communities that we serve are less likely to utilize H.I.V. testing than the gay community and less likely, therefore, to know their H.I.V. status," said Kim Nichols, co-executive director of the African Services Committee. "One of the hooks we've been using to get people to learn their H.I.V. status is the availability of effective H.I.V. treatment. So if this recent phenomenon calls into question the effectiveness of that treatment, it's a disincentive for learning one's H.I.V. status."
Among health experts focusing on the gay population, it is the combination of recreational drug use - the chief culprit is crystal methamphetamine, which has steadily gained in popularity among gay men since the 1990's-and the Internet that until now has provoked the most worry.
Web sites like gaydar.com, manhunt.net and chat rooms on America Online make "hooking up," as it is known, much easier than before. The drugs lower users' inhibitions against unprotected sex and encourage promiscuous behavior. Indeed, crystal meth users surfing the sites will often flag their drug habit with the tagline "PNP," short for "party and play."
Dr. Perry N. Halkitis, a psychologist at New York University is who studying the relationship between crystal meth use and H.I.V. infection in gay men, said he believes that the Internet also makes it much easier for like-minded partners to connect, compounding the spread of H.I.V.
"If you think of the traditional way that guys meet each other in bars, there are social norms," he said. "But when you're home alone, potentially getting high by yourself, those social norms go out the window."
Some AIDS activists stressed that they were waiting for more information about the rare strain before making definitive pronouncements about its impact. Walter Armstrong, the editor in chief of Poz, a magazine about AIDS and H.I.V., said he was not entirely convinced that the alarm sounded yesterday by health officials was warranted. "A handful of cases does not an epidemic make," he said.
But Dr. Halkitis and other researchers who have long predicted the outbreak of a so-called supervirus that resists the existing crop of drugs believed there was ample cause for worry. "This is what we were fearing all along," he said.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 4:11 pm on Feb. 15, 2005
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Ballsburstin
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Up until recently, the stats seemed to show that if you had unprotected sex with woman infected wit HIV, you're chance of getting HIV in an one encounter was 1% or less. Different stages of the infection and the kind of sex exposed the partner to different levels of risk. Of course, for a woman having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive male, the risk is much higher.
However, some newer, more virulent strains of H.I.V. have emerged recently, and a study in SE Asia suggests that at least two new strains of H.I.V. are more highly infectious than the previously known ones. The stats I saw said that having unprotected sex with a woman carrying one of these strains exposed you to a 4 to 5 percent chance of catching the disease. These newer strains also don't appear to respond as well to treatment.
The concern among the reserachers was two fold: because these newer strains are more virulent, it is expected that they will spread faster, and become the dominant infective strains. The second problem was the lack of drug managability for these new strains.
- Balls
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 4:35 pm on Feb. 15, 2005
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ftumch
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There is no dilemma. Don't do it. Simple as that. You are putting your own and other peoples lives at risk.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:17 am on Feb. 16, 2005
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babanana
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Hey Ned....one thread about being tempted to go bareback...the other about the delima behind H.I.V.
Too lonely...to drunk....huh??
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 7:45 am on Feb. 16, 2005
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Ned Flanders
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Quote: from babanana on 7:39 pm on Feb. 16, 2005
Hey Ned....one thread about being tempted to go bareback...the other about the delima behind H.I.V.
Too lonely...to drunk....huh??
Lonely but totally sober.
I just happened to come across the AIDS news a bit after I posted the thread about going bareback, and obviously reading that gave more food for tought.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 5:32 pm on Feb. 16, 2005
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