Sperm Washing Work

Does

Sperm Washing Work

?

Experts disagree with regard to how well sperm washing protects the female. While the jury is still out regarding the effectiveness of the procedure, the clinic in Milan where the procedure was developed reports that after 2000 such procedures, there have been no seroconversions in women and no children born HIV infected.

Will Medical Insurance Cover the Procedure?

Unfortunately, most often insurances do not pay for sperm washing. In addition, the procedure is a costly one; some put the cost at more than $10,000 US. However, the fertility specialist performing the procedure may have ways for you to finance and pay for the procedure. Exact costs and insurance coverage can vary so check with your insurance provider and your physician for more information.

Insurance Benefits Fact Sheets

Where Is The Procedure Done?

Currently, there are relatively few places that perform this procedure. To find a facility that performs sperm washing, start by looking at major university-based health systems and fertility specialists at large medical institutions.

What is Sperm Washing?

Sperm washing is a technique that was first developed in Milan. The concept of sperm washing rests on the premise that HIV resides mainly in the seminal fluid of an HIV positive male. Sperm washing concentrates and separates the fertilizing sperm from the infectious seminal fluid. During ovulation, the woman is then artificially inseminated with the concentrated sperm. Without the infectious seminal fluid, the theory is that the risk of the woman being infected with HIV is greatly reduced, thereby reducing the risk of vertical transmission (transmission from mother to child) as well.

Sperm Washing

In this age of effective HIV medications and near normal life expectancies, having a family while living with HIV is a real possibility; as real as it is for any couple. HIV and pregnacy is no longer impossible. In couples whose partners are both HIV positive or couples with a negative man and a positive woman, conception and holds relatively few risks when compared to the reward of being a parent. But what of those couples with an HIV positive man and a negative woman? This type of serodiscordant couple presents a very substantial risk to the negative partner; the woman. There is one option that is beginning to show promise in preventing HIV transmission to an HIV negative woman. Sperm washing is becoming a viable option in those serodiscordant couples wanting to conceive a child and start a family. Let's learn a little more about this procedure, its effectiveness and its availability.

HIV travel ban may be lifted for infected visitors

Foreigners who have HIV would be allowed to travel and immigrate to the United States under a plan by federal health officials to lift a 22-year ban on infected visitors that critics say was unnecessary from the start.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are seeking public comment through Aug. 17 on the proposal, which would remove HIV from the list of diseases that can bar entry to the country and do away with HIV testing as part of medical exams for permanent residence and, in some cases, travel visas.

“We’re trying to end the stigma and the discriminatory practice for a disease that doesn’t warrant exclusion for coming into this country,” said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine. “We have to appreciate this is not a threat we face from abroad.”

Welcome to Children With AIDS Charity's

Children with AIDS Charity was set up in 1992 to help the youngest of those infected or affected by HIV/AIDS maintain a good quality of life. It is a national UK charity with the aim of working towards a future without poverty or prejudice for these children and their families.

Join the Twilight Ball on 31st October 2009: 6pm - 1am, £ 50 per ticket, the Grand Hall, Kensington

Successful 30 creates unique events to bring people from all walks of life together with a like-minded goal: To have fun and make a difference.

Isn't it only a problem for adults?

AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, a disease that makes it difficult for the body to fight off infectious diseases. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes AIDS by infecting and damaging part of the body's defenses against infection, namely the white blood cells known as CD4 helper lymphocytes (pronounced: lim-fuh-sites).

The only known way for HIV to be transmitted from one person to another is when it is spread from the inside of an infected person's body to the inside of another person's body. This can happen when infected fluids — such as semen (also known as "cum," the fluid released from the penis when a male ejaculates), vaginal fluids, or blood — are passed from one person to another. Someone can become infected even if only tiny amounts of these fluids are spread.

How does someone become infected? HIV can be spread through sexual intercourse if one of the partners has the virus. It can be spread through an infected person's blood, semen, and secretions from the cervix (part of a female's uterus) or vagina.

HIV can travel to another person through cuts and sores on the penis, rectum (the last part of the intestine that connects to the anus), vagina, or skin around the genitals and probably the mouth and other mucous membranes. These cuts or sores are often so small that a person isn't even aware of them.

Girls and guys who have a discharge (an abnormal fluid coming from the vagina or penis) or genital sores because they have a sexually transmitted disease (STD) are at increased risk for infection. HIV can be spread sexually from a man to a woman, a woman to a man, a man to a man, and a woman to a woman.

People who inject themselves with drugs also risk infecting themselves with HIV. Many people who use needles to take intravenous drugs or steroids share the needles with others. A person with HIV who shares a needle also shares the virus, which lives in the tiny amounts of blood attached to the needle. Sharing needles also can pass hepatitis and other serious infections to another person.

Also, newborn babies are at risk of getting the HIV virus from their mothers if they're infected. This can happen before the baby is born, during birth, or through breastfeeding. Pregnant teens and women should be tested for HIV because infected women who receive treatment for HIV are much less likely to spread the virus to their babies. Babies born to mothers infected with HIV are also given special medicines to try to prevent HIV infection.

Another HIV vaccine has failed.

On 21 September 2007, the pharmaceutical giant Merck called a halt to a phase II trial of a new vaccine candidate against HIV [3]. An interim assessment showed that the vaccine, long considered the most promising in development, failed both in preventing HIV infection and in reducing the viral load of those infected.

The vaccine candidate (Merck V520) is a mixture of three components, each a weakened adenovirus vector carrying one of the three synthetic HIV genes gag, pol and nef. The vaccine is designed to elicit a cell-mediated immune response, to stimulate the body’s own CD8 T-cells that recognize and kill the HIV-infected cells. No further details on the precise nature of the vaccine could be found on the Merck website or in the published scientific literature.

The multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II trial enrolled 3 000 HIV-negative volunteers from diverse background between 18 and 45 years of age at high risk of HIV infection.

The interim assessment was on approximately 1 500 volunteers expected to have the best response to the vaccine because they had low levels of pre-existing immunity to adenovirus 5.

The results were devastating. The vaccine did not prevent infection, if anything there were more infections among those given the vaccine. In 741 volunteers who received at least one dose of the three-dose vaccine series, 24 cases of HIV infection were found, compared to 21 cases of HIV infection in the 762 of the placebo group. In the subgroup of 672 who had received at least two vaccinations and who were HIV negative for at least the first 12 weeks of the trial, 19 cases of HIV infection were found, compared to 11 cases in the 691 volunteers who received placebo. The vaccine did not reduce the amount of virus in the bloodstream of those who became infected. The HIV RNA levels at approximately 8 to 12 weeks after diagnosis of infection expressed as geometric means were about 40 000 copies/mL in the vaccine group and 37 000 copies/mL in the placebo group.

Concern over the ethics of vaccine trials heightens as doubt gathers over the vaccine strategy

This latest vaccine failure came less than two months after headlines resounded across the globe that the world is losing the fight against AIDS. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and US’ top advisor on AIDS, said at the 4^th International AIDS Society Conference held in Sydney Australia that for everyone one person placed on therapy, six people get infected with HIV; and he agreed with the UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot that the discrepancy between the number of individuals being put on therapy and the number becoming infected “is not sustainable”, and means that “we are losing the battle” against HIV and AIDS [4]. Fauci later qualified his remarks by referring to “advances” made, including new approaches in vaccine development.

The failure of the Merck vaccine heightens ethical concerns over the continuation of a range of HIV vaccine trials, and raises doubt over the vaccine strategy itself [2], as both old and new approaches to vaccine development are increasingly mired in controversy [5] (see Controversy over European Framework Programme AIDS Vaccines, SiS 36).

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) recognizes “challenges” facing an AIDS vaccine [6], chief among which is the hypervariability of HIV both on a population basis and within HIV-infected individuals, the virus can differ between tissue compartments within the same individual host, and several forms could co-exist in the same tissue compartment. The other challenges are that both the immune response to the virus and how it causes disease remain poorly understood; and there are multiple routes of transmission, which complicates the vaccine strategy.

One main feature against the vaccine strategy is that HIV is a retrovirus that integrates into the host cell genome, and could remain in a latent form, thereby escaping immune surveillance [7, 8]. The virus’ homologies to host genes could also provoke autoimmune responses against the host.

An international team of scientists led by Vejkov Veljokovic at the Institute for Nuclear Sciences Belgrade in Serbia reviewed the evidence on the hazards of gp120 vaccines extensively in 2000 [9]. They highlighted the homologies of gp120 to the human immunoglubulins, hence its potential for participating in, and destabilizing, the immune network. Gp120-based vaccines caused ‘deceptive imprinting’ of the immune system, disarming it against a subsequent HIV infection and accelerating progression to AIDS disease. Such vaccines were also found to elicit auto-antibodies in the host, to impair cytotoxic T lymphocytes, and to eliminate CD4+ T cells. Further, the presence of recombination hotspots in gp120 facilitates horizontal gene transfer and recombination to create new HIV strains and other viruses and bacteria. (The dangers of horizontal gene transfer and recombination apply to all recombinant vaccines against HIV.) On the basis of the extensive evidence of actual and potential hazards, Veljkovic and colleagues called for a moratorium on gp120 vaccines, and for a new vaccine strategy that avoids the dangers specific to gp120, as well as those general to HIV as an integrated retrovirus.

Above all, it remains unclear as to exactly how HIV causes AIDS disease, as IAVI admits (see above) and as borne out by a recent review of the evidence [10, 11] (On Quitting HIV, Beyond the HIV-Causes-AIDS Model, SiS 34). In the absence of this knowledge, any vaccine strategy based on HIV is inappropriate and potentially dangerous.

A rethink of the vaccine strategy is in order in view of the harm that can be caused to participants in clinical trials; and the failed Merck vaccine is perhaps the clearest example of that to-date. Bearing in mind that only a subset of the volunteers – those expected to give the best response to the vaccine – has been assessed, the full clinical picture could be considerably worse.

Merck should now disclose the results in full, including the precise nature of the vaccine used, to ensure that the same mistakes are not made again. For the same reasons, full reporting of the clinical and scientific data from all vaccine trials should be made mandatory.

Disproportionate resources poured into anti-HIV vaccines at the expense of other safer and more effective interventions

There is now substantial evidence that nutritional interventions and exercise are effective in both preventing HIV infection and in delaying disease progression, as described in many chapters of our report, Unraveling AIDS [2]. Since then, new supporting evidence has accumulated.

Naturally occurring flavonoids in tea and fruit juices are found to have anti-HIV activity [12, 13] (Desk Top Drug Discovery, SiS 33); while certain naturally circulating auto-antibodies in HIV-negative healthy individuals are capable of neutralising HIV [14]. The enormous amounts of resources that continue to be poured into vaccine development via the IAVI, especially by mega-philanthropies such as the Gates Foundation [15] (Philanthropy Gates Style, SiS 35) would do much more to combat AIDS if diverted to eradicating poverty, improving nutrition and sanitation, and to promoting a generally healthy lifestyle.

I thank Dr. Veljko Veljkovic for his advice and for sending me key publications for this report.

HIV Symptoms

HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, is a sexually transmitted disease that assails the immune system. The virus attacks your CD4 cells (or T4 cells), which are necessary to fight off illnesses. Eventually, the virus overwhelms the CD4 cells and your body becomes unable to fight off diseases and infections. Once your body's CD4 cell count falls below 200 per cubic millimeter of blood, and/or an opportunistic infection takes hold of your weakened immune system, you will be diagnosed with AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Symptoms of HIV vary according to what stage of the infection you are in and only HIV testing can tell you if you have the disease.

The Impact of HIV/AIDS

Note: New estimates of HIV/AIDS infections, prevalence and deaths were reported in the UNAIDS 2007 AIDS Epidemic Update, released in November 2007.¹ These estimates are lower than those cited in prior reports; numbers and trends should be interpreted with caution.
Over the past 25 years, nearly 25 million people have died from AIDS.¹ HIV/AIDS causes debilitating illness and premature death in people during their prime years of life and has devastated families and communities. Further, HIV/AIDS has complicated efforts to fight poverty, improve health, and promote development by:²

• Diminishing a person’s ability to support, work and provide for his or her family. At the same time, treatment and health-care costs related to HIV/AIDS consume household incomes. The combined effect of reduced income and increased costs impoverishes individuals and households.
  
  
• Deepening socioeconomic and gender disparities. Women are at high risk of infection and have few options for providing for their families. Children affected by HIV/AIDS, due to their own infection or parental illness or death, are less likely to receive an education, as they leave school to care for ailing parents and younger siblings.
  
  
• Straining the resources of communities – hospitals, social services, schools and businesses. Health care workers, teachers, and business and government leaders have been lost to HIV/AIDS. The impact of diminished productivity is felt on a national scale.

AIDS in corner of ravaged Africa

New hope on AIDS in corner of ravaged Africa
Progress in treating disease protects unborn children against infection
Dr Klaus Wiswedel from the Cape Fertility Clinic at the clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. The clinic is the first in Africa to open a dedicated laboratory for HIV positive patients, enabling them to conceive and give birth to an HIV-negative baby by using procedures such as in-vitro fertilization.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - In a sign of hope on a continent ravaged by AIDS, a South African fertility clinic has started a service allowing couples infected with the virus to have a healthy baby.

The Cape Fertility Clinic is the first in Africa to open a laboratory for HIV-positive patients, enabling them to conceive and give birth to HIV-negative babies by using procedures such as in-vitro fertilization.

"HIV is no longer seen as a death sentence but a chronic disease," says Klaus Wiswedel, one of the clinic's directors. "And people with chronic diseases are entitled to have fertility treatment. We can safely deliver an HIV negative child and, with the right treatment, the parent can live a long life."

Rethinking AIDS

Does HIV cause AIDS
Mayank Tewari

The failure of a much sought-after vaccine against the virus has re-ignited an old debate. Mayank Tiwari explores the controversy

The recently reported pessimism among researchers over the failure of an AIDS vaccine has reignited a spectacular science controversy.
Is HIV the cause of AIDS?

Last September, AIDS researchers were dealt a heavy blow when clinical trials of the most promising candidate for an HIV vaccine were stopped after it turned out to be a dud.

The clinical trials showed that the vaccine might have put the people who received it at greater risk of infection rather than preventing HIV or reducing its effect. A survey of top AIDS scientists conducted by The Independent showed most believed a vaccine was nowhere near, with some even believing that effective immunization against HIV may never be possible.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus(HIV)

Human Immunodeficiency Virus(HIV)

AND

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

(AIDS)

West Virginia Public Schools

and

HIV/AIDS/STD Education

West Virginia school law requires public schools to incorporate health education, in grades six through twelve as deemed appropriate by county board, on the prevention, transmission and spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome and other sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and the importance of healthy eating and physical activity to maintaining a healthy weight.
Funding for the HIV/AIDS Prevention Education Coordinator is provided by the Centers for Disease Control, Division of Adolescent School Health(CDC-DASH).

HIV and AIDS education in minority communities

There is a need for more education in the black community about HIV and AIDS that is is not a “White Gay Male” disease. HIV and AIDS know no barriers between race, ethnicity, social, or economic levels. There is a need for HIV and AIDS education in public high schools.
As the rest of the world is finally becoming informed, many of us are already aware that Clark Atlanta University is having financial trouble. What can be done to get us out of this trouble and to prevent it from happening in the future?

More than 100 faculty members were laid off. Of all of the viable options, was this appropiate?

Why is CAU and other HBCUs having financial difficulty? Is anyone coming to our rescue?
Private School Bailout! Necessary for HBCU survival
Clark Atlanta University is not the only school in need of financial assistance. In the Atlanta University Center Morehouse and Spelman College have also endured faculty and staff layoffs in order to keep the institutions afloat.

CAU representatives say the school is still financially sound, but the layoffs were necessary to keep them through the semester. The government has thrown so much money at private companies, but what about the business of education? Is it important to feed the country knowledge in order keep it growing? Is it an obligation of the country to lend monetary support to schools private or public--especially if private companies receive funding?

AIDS Under Pressure

Hyperbaric Medicine in the Treatment of HIV Disease


Reillo, M.
1997, 150 pp., hardcover

US $41.00 / CAN $50.00 / Euro 32.95
ISBN: 978-0-88937-153-8This fascinating book presents the results of laboratory data, clinical experience, and cost-effectiveness in using hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the management of AIDS, based on over six years of clinical experience in the management of patients with HIV disease using hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In a hyberbaric chamber, patients breathe 100% oxygen under pressure, increasing blood and brain levels of oxygen. As adjunctive treatment, the author has shown improvement in managing opportunistic infections, reducing serious complications associated with drug therapy, maintenance of bodyweight, and improvement of neurologic functions. This book documents how HBOT has reduced hospitalizations and associated financial strains in her patients. Long term survivors, diagnosed with AIDS six years ago, have continued to maintain a normal life using HBOT three times per week. The book will be of great interest to anyone involved in the field of HIV treatment, including physicians, researchers, case managers, patients, and nurses, worldwide. Michelle R Reillo, BSN, RN, trained in the fields of critical care and infectious disease at the University of Maryland, has been involved in the treatment of patients with AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic in 1983. She has been principal investigator on several AIDS research studies and has developed clinical protocols for health practitioners in the management of patients with HIV/AIDS. Since 1993, she has been the clinical director of LifeForce Hyperbaric Institute in Baltimore where she conducts research on hyperbaric medicine and its effects on AIDS-related complications. She has had numerous articles published in peer reviewed medical and nursing journals.

From the reviews

Aids Just Got Cool and Sexy

What do baby boomers have in common with the babe and hunk in these pictures? Not too much; don't get your hopes up.

These bare beauties are going to sell boomers the hearing aids we need, or will need very soon. Wait. Not hearing aids... PCA's - Personal Communication Aids.

Boomers totally accept being four-eyed. Glasses are fashionable; moreover , they suggest intelligence, wisdom, and possibly flair. When it comes to hearing aids, however, boomers will disguise their hearing losses more often than any other disabling or deteriorating condition. Hearing aids make them feel "old," "weak", and "frail" - everything that boomers refuse to be. Heck, my senior-age parents won't even wear hearing aids.

But yesterday's gone.... And my rocked-out ears say thank you.

The new ear pieces are not "hearing aids." They are PCA's, "personal communication aids." And the PCA is the "ultimate high-tech accessory."

The Aura of Audéo

Scott Sigler's INFECTED

Scott Sigler's INFECTED -- free download, inexplicably limited

Scott Sigler's new book INFECTED is in stores on April 1 and for the next four days, it will also be available as a free PDF download from Random House's website. Scott made his name by writing and podcasting high-quality science fiction novels under Creative Commons, and eventually, Random House's Crown imprint came knocking.

But publishers are schizophrenic and often end up acting really dumb in the service of trying to do something smart. Crown is putting Scott's book online for free as a PDF, but they're taking it down after only four days -- presumably just in time to kill whatever momentum the downloads are generating. If you happen upon this blog-post next week when it shows up on Digg, you're out of luck -- no download to use to figure out if you want to buy the book.

Worse still: Crown is only making the download available before the book goes on sale! This is an act of massive goofiness. Here's what this means: the book's promotional download period ends before you can buy the book. If you download this book and love it, you can't walk down to the bookstore and pick up a copy. Sure, you can pre-order it on Amazon, but I know from watching my affiliate link payments here on Boing Boing that ten times as many of you buy books that are on sale when I blog them than buy books that have to be pre-ordered. The Internet exists in an eternal NOW, and expecting someone who downloads a book to hold onto the impulse to buy it for four days is so unrealistic, it makes me suspect that this strategy was conceived of by someone who doesn't actually use the Internet.

Either Crown believes that free downloads sell books or they don't. There's no coherent explanation for a ticking-bomb download like this one; it's like the hesitation marks on the wrists of a half-ass suicide.

What's more, as a result of their time-limited download, they're going to lose the ability to compile good estimates of who's downloading the book and where they're coming from -- fans of the book will no doubt keep it online on their own sites, scattered around the net, and new readers will download from all those sources, sources that Random House/Crown doesn't control, can't compile stats on, and will be totally in the dark on. So in addition to the sales they're throwing away by making the ebook harder to get, they're also throwing away the market intelligence they'd get by being the canonical download site for it.

Scott tells me that he'd much rather the book stay online perpetually, so this is definitely emanating from the publisher.

Onto the book -- it looks like a hell of a thing:

GIS and .NET Development

Rants on GIS, .NET, and life in general


Getting yer’ Agile on at a discount: Upcoming course

May 12, 2009 by homebrutrout

Come on out and join us to drink the agile kool-aid, take your agile medicine, learn what agile can do for your team or organization, or have a skills refresher for experienced agile practitioners.
Dave Bouwman and myself will be collaborating to give a one day Agile Project Management training seminar on Friday, June 26, 2009 near Denver, CO. This course will cover both project management practices and development/engineering practices. We’ll begin with an introduction to agile practices and rapidly progress to specific methodology examples (Scrum), cover roles and responsibilities, project controls, and how to scale the agile process in your organization. In addition, we’ll introduce specific software development processes that mesh well with the agile process including automation for code documentation and unit testing, design patterns, refactoring tools, and automated builds and continuous integration. Throughout the course we’ll give you specific examples, the good, the bad, and the ugly, from our own experiences using the methodology in our shop.
Traditionally, this is a course for which DTSAgile typically charges $1200 per student. However, through the fine folks at Rocky Mountain URISA, you can join us for this course at a very steep discount. Cost for URISA members is $135 and the cost for non-members is still only $150. What does that mean to you? Well, if you live in the continental US (and some places in Canada) you can attend one of our Agile training seminars including plane fare and hotel for less than we typically charge for the course. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a very good deal. If you’re in Colorado, particularly the Greater Denver region, it’s a no brainer. But it’s still a steal even if you need to travel in from points afar.

AIDS Drug For Children

Cipla Will Produce AIDS Drug For Children
Hyderabad: Cipla Ltd will produce the primary three-in-one cocktail anti-AIDS medicine used for children. This accompanies the USFDA clearing a combining quantity of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Viramune, GlaxoSmithKline’s Epivir (or lamivudine) and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Zerit (or stavudine), which are anti-retrovirals or drugs that fight back AIDS.

The commendation came under the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or Pepfar, a $15 billion, 5-year plan to clash the threat in over 15 countries.

Amar Lulla, MD, Cipla stated, “The problem is massive and children have been by far ignored till now as there were no right dosages available for supply.”

He also said that this is the foremost pediatric quantity of the grouping and provided that only 50,000 children are under treatment presently, the aim is to get to 10 times the number.

Lulla added that money making was not the purpose here.

This plan is exceptional in the sense generics manufacturers such as Cipla can produce still-under-patent medicines for supply to countries frequently in sub-Saharan Africa that are the worst affected by HIV/AIDS at highly subsdised prices.

The Reproductive System

The main organs of the male reproductive system are the testes and the scrotum.
The testes are the primary sex organs because they produce sperm and male sex hormones.
The sex hormones are called androgens. Sperm produced by the testes are stored within the epididymis.
They then enter a vas deferens, which transports them to an ejaculatory duct.
The ejaculatory duct enters the urethra.
The urethra passes through the penis and transports sperm to outside the body.

Maintenance
The primary female sex organs are paired ovaries that lie in shallow depressions,
one on each side of the upper pelvic cavity. The ovaries are the primary organs
because they produce eggs and the female sex organs, estrogen and progesterone.
The egg leaves the ovaries and travels through the fallopian tubes and usually ends
up being washed out of the uterus by blood due to non-fertilization.

HIV Need Healthcare

Tell Us Your Story: Why People with HIV Need Healthcare Reform

A coalition of AIDS organizations is working to collect individual health care stories from people living with HIV/AIDS. Personal anecdotes, like your own, will help us advocate for the strongest health care provision
Obama disappoints needle-exchange advocates
HIV-Positive People Need Healthcare Reform: Read Stories from the Field
Congressional Democrats are getting cold feet on healthcare reform legislation. Calls are needed NOW to urge Congress to not delay in enacting meaningful, comprehensive health care reform for the U.S.

Interpol Joins The Battle Against

Interpol Joins The Battle Against Fake Medicines in Africa

International police body Interpol will join the fight against the growing trade in Africa in fake drugs for tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS which threatens the lives of thousands, a senior official said Tuesday.


The agency's efforts will begin later this year and will build on its success in tackling the problem in Latin America and Southeast Asia, said John Newton, the manager of Interpol's intellectual property rights project.

"We have learned a lot of lessons in those regions and we are now able to apply those to Africa," he told AFP on the sidelines of Interpol's annual general assembly in Marrakech in southern Morocco.

Congo, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan asked the 186-member police body at the gathering for for help in stopping smuggling networks from making fake drugs readily available in their markets and sometimes even pharmacies, he said.

"The Africans are very keen for Interpol to work with them on this subject," said Newton.

Interpol will train police in Africa on how to smash counterfeit medicine smuggling networks, coordinate police operations and track the flow of fake drugs from southeast Asia and other parts of the world to the continent.

As it has in other regions, the global police body will work with the World Health Organization and drug companies to tackle the problem.

"We can bridge the gap between law enforcement and the public health sector, we are able to bring the two areas together," said Newton.

Use of Sleep Aids by Young U.S. Adults Soars: Study

Trend Suggests Insomnia May Be On the Rise in Younger Americans

By Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters

CHICAGO
Use of prescription sleep aids nearly tripled among young adults between 1998 and 2006, according to a study released on Thursday by the healthcare business arm of Thomson Reuters.

"Insomnia, a condition traditionally associated with older adults, appears to be causing larger numbers of young adults to turn to prescription sleep aids, and to depend on them for longer periods of time," said William Marder, senior vice president and general manager for the healthcare business of Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters News.

A study of medical and drug claims data found a 50-percent increase in use of the drugs among all adults under 45, who also appear to be using the drugs for a longer period of time to help them fall asleep.

During the study period, the average length of time sleep aids were used by adults under 45 jumped by more than 40 percent -- rising to 93 days in 2006 from 64 days in 1998.

But perhaps the most startling finding was the increase in use of sleep aids among college-age adults 18 to 24.

Use in this age group rose to 1,524 users per 100,000 in 2006, up from 599 users per 100,000 in 1998.

"I find it very worrisome that young people who should have a very strong and healthy sleep system are now finding they are turning to medication to help them get to sleep," Donna Arand, a sleep specialist at Kettering Hospital Sleep Disorder Center in Dayton, Ohio, said in a telephone interview.

Arand said she has seen a number of students seeking sleep aids because their normal sleep patterns have been disrupted in college, and she fears these adults may have trouble adjusting to a normal sleep pattern as their schedules normalize.

RARE SIDE EFFECT

Two-thirds of those in this study population were taking non-benzodiazepine hypnotics -- such as Sanofi-Aventis' Ambien CR and Sepracor Inc's Lunesta.

These newer sleep aids generally have fewer side effects, but in rare cases they can cause sleep walking.

That may have led to the demise of a 51-year-old Wisconsin man who froze to death while sleep-walking barefoot in his underwear this week in below-zero cold.

The Sawyer County Sheriff's Office in Hayward, Wisconsin, said Timothy Brueggeman had Ambien at his house, and family members told the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis that he had a history of sleep walking.

Chief Deputy Tim Ziegel said there was no proof that Brueggeman had taken the drug before his death but toxicology tests had been ordered.

"We do not know all the facts about what transpired," said Sanofi spokeswoman Susan Brook, noting that the circumstances of the man's death are still being investigated.

In general, she said sleep walking is a rare side effect of the drug and she cautioned that Ambien or Ambien CR should not be taken by people with a history of sleep walking, nor should they be taken with alcohol.

(Additional reporting by Mike Conlon; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Copyright 2009 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

EquipKits

EquipKits® are the perfect organizer for your home, office, vacation or business trip. Made of durable polypropylene with heavy duty hinges and snap latches, EquipKits® include essential products for hobbies, home and sports. Its compartments and clear container lets you find what you need, when you need it—it’s that fast and easy.
Currently available is the EquipKits® Traveler’s Medicine Kit. "These essential over-the-counter medications and first aid products are a must for those traveling domestically or abroad," says Dr. Richard O'Brien, U.S. Emergency Physician and nationally recognized speaker on Emergency Care.
More info

Early Use of AIDS Drugs

Cuts Patients’ Risk of Death (Update1)

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Patients who start antiviral drugs before their immune systems are damaged by the AIDS virus substantially cut their risk of death, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers reviewed the medical records of more than 17,000 patients infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Patients who started treatment before their infection-fighting cells had fallen below a certain level cut their risk of dying by as much as 94 percent compared with those who waited longer.

The study lends support to revising current treatment guidelines, by adding weight to a growing body of research that suggests treating HIV at earlier stages can help save lives. Doctors and patients have been wrestling for years with the question of when best to start AIDS medications, which can cause substantial side effects including stomach upset, nausea, altered mental processes and disturbances in blood fat levels.

“The pendulum has shifted,” said Richard Moore, an author of the study and professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “The drugs are now safer and the evidence mounting from our data and other data suggests it makes sense to start therapy earlier.”

While the findings were already known to many doctors who treat patients with HIV, the publication is likely to spur greater use of antiviral drugs, said Jason Kantor, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in San Francisco. This will benefit Gilead Sciences Inc., the Foster City, California-based company that is the leading seller of AIDS drugs, Kantor said in a telephone interview today.

AIDS Drugs

Health is Easy to Reach

Know Before You Decide

Tree or Root Man, What cause it?

ntroduction
It's a very rare case of disease. It happen in my country, Indonesia. I will describe the disease, explain what caused it.

Tree or Root man, has become Dede's nickname. He suffers disseminated skin disease since he was 17 years old. Dede 'the root man' lives in Cililin Bandung District, West Java, Indonesia has become world phenomenon.
It begins from:
A man with strange skin disease was discovered in West Java by Discovery Channel. Then Dede was brought him to famous dermatologist and immunologist from US, Anthony Gaspari.

Anthony Gaspari surprised when saw dede at first time at Dede's house. Dede's skin disease has spread already, that make an appearance like a root of tree that stick outward from both of his hands and feet. “This warts began to grow and slowly radiate after my knee being scratch in an accident when i was a teenager.” Dede said, citated from Discovery Channel, Friday (16/11/2007).

Because of the disease, Dede was being insult by people who live in that area and got a nickname 'Root Man'. Since few years ago, Dede couldn't live normally because of the disease. And more tragic things are he being sacked from his workplace, also be divorced by his wife.

But, he still lives with his two daughters. His daughters already gave up for searching cure for their father. Besides financial problems, Dede's family said that the doctors in that area didn't know about therapy for the disease
For daily needs, Dede joined 'strange man' show group that a group of people with rare physical abnormality. That group run a show of strange man and earn money from people who watch them.

His Abnormality
After having laboratory test on Dede's disease, Anthony Gaspari, concluded that Dede's disease was caused by HPV (Human Papiloma Virus). Actually, HPV usually be found in several skin diseases and also causative factor for cervical cancer.
What caused that virus grow wildly in Dede's body?
It looks like that Dede also has rare genetic abnormality, that gene is responsible for immune system. So Dede has weak immunity that couldn't protect against those warts.“Because anomaly in that immune system, HPV can easily control cells in Dede's skin,” Gaspari stated, Professor in Faculty of Medicine in Maryland University, US.

At first, Gaspari considered Dede had AIDS because some of key components in leucocyte count was very low. But, then laboratory test shows that Dede didn't suffer AIDS. Even, Dede had very rare and mysterious immunity, because the only problem is his warts, overall physical condition is good.

“Usually, a person with low immunity is easy to be infected or get a disease. Also, nobody from his parents and siblings show that signs," Gaspari said.Hopes for Cure
Because this disease caused by HPV infection, there is a hope it can be cured. Usually synthetic vitamin A can cease HPV growth in many cases.
It is clear that Dede won't have normal body like before. But, his warts will decrease a lot so he can have better functions of hands and feet.
Until now, Dede is diagnosed to have Epidermodisplasia veruciformis and giant cutaneous horn caused by HPV.
Dede also had already been operated on his hands in order to reduce weight and to reduce warts size.

Our Human Body has a lot mysterious things inside it.


Thank you.

Mr. President, No

The President has dug himself in for a battle over embryonic stem cell research. The problem is that he is dug himself into a hole that makes no ethical sense. He is in favor of research on stem cell lines that already exist but not on frozen embryos that already exist. He allows destruction of embryos for IVF but not for research. And he talks about adoption when that is manifestly not an option for most frozen embryos which are put aside often because they don't look right.

He is a man of principle but his principles are simply incoherent. - Art Caplan

Art Caplan on Autism, Genetic Testing and Ethics

Bloggers: Be Afraid [of Pharma Spies] - Be Very Afraid
Financial Times reports that leading pharmaceutical companies have figured out how to "'spy' on internet conversations about medicines, and they are going to be reading blogs. Already our server logs record dozens of hits a day from pharma companies (hey, works for me - read bioethics all day long, guys!), but the new software, called "i-reputation," is on a whole new scale, raising the ire of lots of folks in the Internet community. Tough to see why pharmaceutical folks reading blogs would be problematic, since after all blogs are public, but it is easy to see what the concentrated strength of pharmaceutical companies could do to suppress something that Big Pharma doesn't want to see in blogdom.

Health bloggers have the capacity right now to operate under the radar screen of big corporations, or at least to do so to some degree, because the readership is a small and dedicated sampling of people who cannot get enough news, or who are looking for very specific information from Google (that latter group makes up roughly 75% of our readership, for example). But blogdom germinates ideas that eventually become threatening to powerful corporations and others with clout - and so the same technology that made blogs so accessible will now be reverse engineered to make blogs more vulnerable...

The global epidemic

Depth
AIDS
The global epidemic

When AIDS surfaced on the medical radar screens in 1981, the diagnosis was a death sentence.But — over the past decade or so — that's begun to change as evidence began to mount that people could live many years with AIDS if they were taking certain drugs.

A November 2006 study in the New England Journal of Medicine provided the strongest evidence yet that life-long antiretroviral therapy had turned HIV/AIDS into a chronic disease rather than a countdown to death.

The study showed that people who take a break from HIV therapy to reduce the side-effects are more than twice as likely to die than those who take a steady course of the drugs.

"Quite unexpectedly, our results show that interrupting therapy increases the risk of serious non-AIDS-related events," Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, one of the trial's co-chairs, said in a statement. She is a researcher at the Harlem Hospital Center in New York City.

The trial on nearly 5,500 people infected with HIV in 33 countries was stopped early when the advantages of continuing therapy were clear from the preliminary data. t's a big leap since 1981, when doctors in New York and Los Angeles noticed that increasing numbers of previously healthy young men were seeking help for symptoms that included severe weight loss, virulent herpes infections, life-threatening lung and brain infections and previously rare cancers. Around the same time, doctors in France, Zaire and Haiti also noticed a similar syndrome in both men and women.

The remarkable thing these patients had in common was that they were dying from infections to which most healthy people were immune. The doctors were puzzled because they could find no obvious cause for this new syndrome. If a line can be drawn in time, then 1981 marks the official beginning of the AIDS epidemic.
Infection rates peaked?
Epidemic update 2008

Essential findings:

* Number of people living with HIV/AIDS in 2007: 33 million worldwide.
* Number of new infections in sub-Saharan Africa: estimated at 1.9 million for 2007 — about 67 per cent of the world total.
* Number of children living with HIV in 2007: two million, 90 per cent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.
* Number of new infections in North America: estimated at 54,000 in 2007, while deaths from AIDS in the same region totalled 23,000.
* · The first wave of survivors living 20 years or more is now reaching middle age and they're suffering from rapid onset aging. Years of medication, combined with the effects of the disease itself, means their care needs are again very complex. Heart disease, severe osteoporosis, diabetes, and opportunistic cancers are just some of the ailments they face.

The United Nations said in its report released in July 2008 that the AIDS epidemic had stabilized, although it cautioned governments they would have to continue to direct millions into treatment.

Improvements in treatment have been significant, the report said, with about three million patients taking medication as compared with 300,000 in 2003. The report noted that funding levels will have to be increased notably to achieve a goal of universal access by 2010.

The number of deaths from AIDS in 2007 totalled two million, according to the report – down from 2.2 million 2005.

In June 2008, the UN reported that despite apparent progress in the battle against AIDS, far more people are being infected every year than are getting access to antiretroviral drug treatments. Of the 2.5 million people infected in 2007, only one million began taking antiretroviral drug therapy.
The mystery illness

It was 1981 when doctors in New York and Los Angeles noticed that increasing numbers of previously healthy young men were seeking help for symptoms that included severe weight loss, virulent herpes infections, life-threatening lung and brain infections and previously rare cancers. Around the same time, doctors in France, Zaire and Haiti also noticed a similar syndrome in both men and women.

The remarkable thing these patients had in common was that they were dying from infections to which most healthy people were immune. The doctors were puzzled because they could find no obvious cause for this new syndrome. If a line can be drawn in time, then 1981 marks the official beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

By 1983 French researchers had isolated a virus that would later be called HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). They and others linked this virus to the development of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), but a test for exposure to HIV would not become widely available for several more years.

HIV is unusual in that it infects the very cells of the immune system — called T-cells — that protect us from attack by viruses, bacteria and other bugs. Once a person becomes infected, the immune system mounts a counter-attack by producing massive numbers of T-cells. For a time, the virus appears to be contained. Indeed, on the outside, the average HIV-positive person appears no different from an average healthy person.

Yet inside the body of someone with HIV infection rages a vast war, as billions of viruses and T-cells are created and destroyed in a single day. The body cannot sustain the expenditure forever, and the virus slowly gains the upper hand. After 10 years or more of battle the immune system begins to collapse. At this point, infections that are, at worst, annoying for the average person, turn lethal as AIDS develops. Overwhelmed by wave after wave of infection, the body eventually gives in.

Initially considered a mysterious gay plague, researchers now know that HIV is transmitted through unprotected sex, by sharing needles used for injecting drugs, from transfusions of contaminated blood and from breast feeding by infected mothers. HIV has now spread to the point where one per cent of sexually active adults around the globe have the virus.
The situation in Canada

AIDS in Canada

* An estimated 58,000 people had HIV/AIDS in 2006.
* Every two hours, someone in the country becomes infected with HIV.
* Over 27 per cent of infected people don't know they have HIV.
* Women now account for one-fifth of people with HIV/AIDS, up from one-tenth in 1995.

Canada recorded its first case of AIDS in 1982. The Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that by the end of 2005, there were about 58,000 people living with HIV-AIDS. Of those, the agency estimates that 15,000 — or just over 25 per cent — don't know it.

The agency says Canada's infection rates have remained relatively stable at approximately 2,500 new cases a year. However, death rates have fallen as medical advances increase the life expectancy of infected people.

The greatest proportion of new infections continues to be among men having sex with men, at 45 per cent. Women accounted for 27 per cent of new infections and now make up more than 20 per cent of the population of people living with HIV-AIDS. But the rate of infection among aboriginals is growing faster than any other group. They accounted for nine per cent of new infections in 2005, an overall infection rate that is nearly three times higher than among non-aboriginals.

Although the number of deaths caused by AIDS has fallen since 1996, Health Canada calls the epidemic "severe and deeply troublesome," and says Canadians should not be complacent.

Horrific beetle sex

why the most successful males have the spikiest penises

Category: Animal behaviour • Animals • Insects • Invertebrates • Sex and reproduction
Posted on: March 1, 2009 9:00 AM, by Ed Yong

f you've ever complained about having bad sex, you really have no idea. Human women may have to complain about poor stamina or incompetent technique but the female seed beetle (or bean weevil; Callosobruchus maculatus) has to contend with her partner's nightmarish penis - an organ covered in hard, sharp spikes. Just see if you can look at the picture on the right without wincing.

It's no surprise then that females sustain heavy injuries during sex. But why have male beetles evolved such hellish genitals? What benefits do they gain by physically harming their partners?

It's possible that the injuries directly benefit the males, either because they stop the females from mating again or spend more efforts in raising their fertilised eggs to avoid the strain of future liaisons.

The alternative is that the spikes could give the males an edge in "sperm competitions", where they compete with rivals not through direct combat, but through fertilising as many eggs as possible. In this theory, the spines are important for winning these competitions, and the wounds they inflict are simply a nasty side-effect.

Cosima Hotzy and Goran Arnqvist from Uppsala University think that the latter theory is right. They have found that the penile spines are vital to a male's success - those with the longest spikes fertilise the most eggs and father the most young. Size, it seems, really does matter.

The duo studied beetles taken from 13 countries across the tropics, from Brazil to the USA, and from Nigeria to Oman. The genitals of these different populations are very varied and to study them under a microscope, Hotzy and Arnqvist first had to fluff their subjects. They anaesthetised the males with carbon dioxide, and erected their penises with an "artificial inflater" - a microscopic plastic tip connected to a pump. Under a microscope, they measured the length of the longest spines and the size of the entire spine-bearing area.

They studied female beetles too, and all from a single population. Each one was allowed to mate once with a single male. A week later, Hotzy and Arnqvist dissected their sexual tracts to see how much scarring they had, using the distinctive black pigments on the scars to spot them. As you might expect, the males with the spiniest genitals inflicted the most amount of scarring on the females, in a way that was independent of the partners' overall body size.

To measures the effects of these spines on the males' reproductive success, the duo first mated virgin females with males from a single Nigerian population, who had all been sterilised by radiation. Two days later, the females were then paired with a second male, taken from one of the 13 worldwide populations. One week later, they counted all the eggs she laid. Every one of these must have been fathered by the second male, so their number represents his ability to successfully oust the sterile sperm of the first partner.

Again, the males with the longest penile spines were more likely to be the victors of the sperm competition and again, this link had nothing to do with either the male's body size or his general health. The degree of scarring in the females was also linked to the male's success at sperm competition, but to a much lesser extent and certainly not when the length of the spines was taken into account. It is the spines, rather than the damage they inflict, that is the key to the male's success.
t's not entirely clear what exactly the spines do. They could anchor the male during sex, position his penis in the right spot during sex, or scrape out the sperm of rivals from the female's genitals. Either way, they have clearly evolved to allow the male seed beetle to out-ejaculate his rivals.

This fierce competition for fertilisation rights is fairly common among insects and has led to the evolution of some truly horrific sexual strategies. The seed beetle is far from the only example of what Hotzy and Arnqvist call "sexually antagonistic co-evolution".

Some species, like the dung fly, also have armoured genitals. Others, like the familiar fly Drosophila melanogaster, have toxic semen laden with chemicals that actually slash the lifespans of females, who can literally mate their way to death. But even here, the effect of this lethal cocktail isn't the early death of the female; that's an unfortunate side-effect. Their goal is to encourage the female to lay more eggs or reject further suitors, or even kill the sperm of other males.

And possibly the most cringeworthy sexual technique of all belongs to the male bed bug, whose penis is like a hypodermic needle. He stabs it through the female's back and injects his semen straight into her abdominal cavity. It's a method that's been appropriately named "traumatic insemination".

Now, for anyone who has managed to stick this through (and believe me, I've been wincing with every keystroke), female insects have evolved their own defences. The female seed beetle, for example, has a huge amount of connective tissue lining her sexual tracts so that the damage inflicted by the males doesn't affect her too badly. She also takes a more direct approach to protecting herself - when she's had enough, she simply kicks the male until he lets go. Doing so cuts the total length of mating by a third - this is one species where the females want the males to ejaculate sooner.

Reference: Cosima Hotzy, Göran Arnqvist (2009). Sperm Competition Favors Harmful Males in Seed Beetles Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.01.045

Image: from Nature

Low sperm count woes

Dear Dr Cath,

I’VE been trying to get my girlfriend pregnant. A test showed only nine per cent of my sperm is OK. Does this mean I can’t have children?

Dear reader,

There are many reasons why a couple may find it hard to conceive.

Low sperm count is just one of them.

Sperm count readings can be confusing. The morphology (how normal they look) in your sample is a little low but not too bad.

You need to ask your doctor to interpret your results for you and advise you on maximising your fertility.

To boost the numbers stop smoking, avoid alcohol, eat healthily and keep your testicles cool by wearing boxer shorts.

Medical Encyclopedia

Hearing aids
ome hearing loss is almost inevitable with age. It is estimated that 30% of all people over 65 have significant hearing impairment. Conductive hearing loss occurs when sound has problems getting through the external and middle ear. Surgery or a hearing aid may be helpful for this type of hearing loss.
Update Date: 1/18/2007

Updated by: Sandra W. Cohen, M.D. Private Practice specializing in geriatrics, Brooklyn, NY. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

A.D.A.M. Logo

The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed physician should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. Copyright 1997-2009, A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

'Aids' death certificate

Row over 'Aids' death certificate
A South African doctor should face a charge of unprofessional conduct for naming Aids on a death certificate against family wishes, officials say.

A complaint was filed with the national health watchdog against Dr Leon Wagner after the woman died in April 2005.

Dr Wagner has not yet entered a plea, saying it is unclear what rule he has broken. The hearing has been adjourned.

A BBC correspondent says the stigma attached to Aids means doctors do not commonly list it as the cause of death.

Deaths are attributed on death certificates to related diseases, such as tuberculosis or pneumonia, rather than Aids, the BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says.

The charge of unprofessional conduct has sparked debate in South Africa about the extent to which Aids-related deaths are covered up, he says.

South Africa, where 5.5 million people are living with HIV, is one of several countries where the HIV epidemic is continuing to worsen, according to a UNAids report released this week.

'Watershed' case

Proceedings against Dr Wagner were triggered by a complaint by the family of a 30-year-old woman to the national health watchdog.

After a disciplinary hearing in Bloemfontein, the South African Heath Professions Council said Dr Wagner should face a charge of "unprofessional conduct".

Thai AIDS Victim

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Thai soldiers learn about AIDS by grim example as they view a victim's body at a hospice
run by a Buddhist monastery.
Every 24 hours 8,000 people die of AIDS.

AIDS look

What does a person dying from AIDS look like?
[This is a long post so please exercise some caution.]

The following videos you are about to see is what I think THE most effective
HIV/AIDS-awareness videos ever. Year after year, a lot of money is being spent
in order to raise awareness but nothing has changed -- every day, thousands
of people around the world are still being infected. I think we need to stop
"glamorizing" the image of HIV/AIDS with all these celebrity hoolabaloo
nonsense who probably don't know jack shit and the whole "AIDS is no
longer a death sentence" mentality but instead, let's show everyone the
REAL pain and suffering behind it.
seen someone in their early 40s, deteriorate away because of a disease?
Have you ever wondered what they are going through, what's inside their
head, how they feel and what their message to the world is? Ladies, meet
Rodney, a New Zealander who suffered from HIV for 16 years before he passed away last year.

After the jump, watch the videos Rodney and his partner took during the last
year of his life. Keep an eye on how he stopped himself from vomiting while
he gave a message about the importance of safe sex. Listen to him stutter
as he shared that doctors can't do anything any more. Watch him as he
moved from his house to the hospital. See with your own eyes how he
transformed, over time, into a decaying bag of bones in a vegetative state, waiting for the axe to fall.

Click click click click!

Before we continue, I'd like to request that y'all refrain from making
comments how it's someone's fault why they contracted the disease.
It's easy to cast the stone, say and point fingers but every situation
is unique. Some people are just basically clueless and don't know
what they are doing and there are others who know the risks and do
whatever it is they want to do. Some people simply don't care. Some
think they're invincible. Some would rather chose pleasure rather t
hat pain. Some are lied upon by their partners while there are some
who go out there, chase the bug, and deliberately infect themselves
(or other people). Have you heard of this 32-year old British HIV poz
man in Sweden and how he had sex with over 100 teenage boys and
girls and tried to infect them? It really is a big bad crazy world.

We all make bad decisions. We all make irrational, spur of the moment decisions. In this day and age, I'm sure most of us know what we're getting ourselves into. We all lose our morals from time to time. Don't tell me you've NEVER, EVER lost the plot and no, I'm not talking about sex here. No one is perfect and none of us is totally immune from making mistakes. Anyone, man, woman, child, wealthy, poor, brown, black, white, periwinkle, magenta, chartreuse, young and old can catch HIV.

So yeah.

I personally know a few HIV+ people online. Some are nice friends who happened to catch it and some are anonymous random trash-talking trolls whom I could only hope that they perish from the face of the planet soon. I don't blame them though. They're dirty bitches who like filthy sex. Just kidding. Y'all know karma is working well towards your favour when your enemy's CD4 count drops to 10. OMG! I would never wish AIDS to my worst enemy. Oh who the hell am I kidding. I have and I probably will, because I'm a mean and nasty person. Don't y'all want to see your enemies die from a slow and painful death? Oo la la the satisfaction on my face knowing they've got half of their body already in the grave.

However, inside every nasty person is also human being with emotions and videos like the ones you are about to see can easily turn a glacial princess into a softie.

Let's put HIV/AIDS aside for now. The thing that moved me the most is seeing this guy's suffering on "tape" and again, the message he wants to share to the world

Condoms Prevent Pregnancies, Spread Of Aids

It is important that to fight against AIDS we should know something about the HIV/AIDS virus.
Condom:How far can it prevent AIDS

The AIDS virus is a microscopic organism which causes AIDS. It is many, many times smaller than the human sperm.The condom was manufactured more than 160 years ago to prevent the human sperm passing through to fertilize the female egg. It was not manufactured against the HIV/AIDS virus, which only appeared in 1981.

Scientific experiments show that condoms contain pores. The fact that latex condoms do indeed contain pores was highlighted by a major 1981 Food and Drug Administration, FDA, study. The first is to stimulate actual conditions of sexual intercourse.

This study showed detectable leakage of HIV-sized particles in one third (33 percent) of the condoms tested. Electron micrographs reveal voids (holes) five microns in size (50 times the size of the virus), while fracture mechanics analyses, sensitive to the largest flaws present, suggest inherent flaws as 50 microns (500 times the size of the virus).

The AIDS virus is 50 times smaller than these tiny holes which make it easy for virus to pass through them, about as easy as a dime through a basket ball loop or you can say the condom is like a fence built to keep out cows (human sperm) while rats (virus) go in and out freely.

Therefore, there is nothing like safe sex when using the condoms to sex an HIV/AIDS infected person. The certainty is that if you use the condom, you will not impregnate a woman (if the condom is not defective, but many are defective) but you will surely get AIDS yourself. Then it will be too late.

One of my lawyers, a woman told me of a pathetic incidence, that when her colleague was dying of AIDS she asked her to take care of her little son. The dying woman said that what pained her most was the fact that she and her boyfriend used a fresh condom every time they had sex, so how could she have caught AIDS? Of course the unfortunate woman did not know that condoms do not prevent AIDS.

President George W. Bush has shown great concern to help Africa fight the scourge of AIDS. But will the money allocated for AIDS stop the spread of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa, where 76 percent of the world's HIV/AIDS deaths occurred last year? Not if the dark dealings in Africa continue unchecked. In the fight against AIDS, there are major enemies Africa has to watch. Profiteering has trumped prevention.

AIDS is no longer simply a disease; it has become a multibillion-dollar industry, AIDS is now a weapon in the hands of anti-life promoters, AIDS is now an economic and political weapon in the hands enemies, to stop the growth of the African population, thereby stalling economic development. And condoms are the tools used by the perpetrators.

Uganda was one of the highest countries in Africa infected by HIV/AIDS. The whole country, the churches, the government and all civil society, mounted a campaign for FIDELITY AND ABSTINENCE. The proportion of Ugandans infected with HIV plunged from 21 percent in 1991 to six percent in 2002. But international AIDS experts who went to Uganda said Ugandans were wrong to try to limit people's sexual freedom.

Worse, they had the financial power to force their casual-sex agenda upon them. They campaigned and promoted condoms and played down on fidelity and abstinence. As fidelity and abstinence have been subverted, Uganda's HIV rates have begun to tick back up.
Western media have been told this renewed surge of HIV infection is because there are "not enough condoms in Uganda" even though Uganda has many more condoms now than they had in the early 1990s, when their HIV rates began to decline.

Condom promotions have failed in Africa, because effective HIV prevention methods, such as urging Africans to stick to one partner, fidelity and abstinence are ignored. While the loudest HIV-prevention message in Africa is "universal access" to condoms.

Treatment is good, but for every one African who gains access to HIV treatment, six become newly infected. To treat one AIDS patient with life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs costs more than US $1000 a year. But the successful "fidelity and abstinence" campaign cost just 30 cents per person each year.

Campaigns which insist on sexual abstinence outside marriage and lifelong, mutual fidelity within marriage are indeed scientifically valid and have offered evidence-based proof that people who observe such behaviour have been able to prevent the spread of HIV.

Studies in countries where the HIV prevalence rate has been decreased in recent years, such as Uganda, Kenya and Thailand, indicate that people in these countries were more disposed to reduce the number of their sexual partners and/or to delay the onset of sexual activity than to adopt the use of condoms.

Regrettably, however, many scientists, HIV prevention educators and AIDS activists are so fixed on condom promotion that they do not give due attention to the risk avoidance that is possible to achieve through abstinence outside marriage and mutual, lifelong fidelity within marriage.

International suppliers of condoms make broad, oversimplified statements such as "You can't change Africans' sexual behaviour." While it is true that you can't change everybody, you don't have to. If the share of men having three or more sexual partners in a year drops from 15 percent to three percent as happened in Uganda between 1989 and 1995, HIV infection rates will plunge. It is as simple as that.

Telling men and women to keep sex sacred - to save sex for marriage and then remain faithful - is telling them to love one another deeply with their whole hearts. Most HIV infections in Africa are spread by sex outside of marriage: casual sex and infidelity. The solution is faithful love.

For developing countries, condoms are enemy number one. They prevent pregnancies, so our population cannot grow and we remain underdeveloped and poor. Condoms promote AIDS, which kills people, stalling population growth and economic development. International donors should give malaria tablet free, not free condoms to schools, colleges and universities.

Here is a plea from the Anglican Bishop of Uganda, Rev. Sam L. Ruteikara, co-chair of Uganda's National AIDS-Prevention Committee: Let My People Go, Aids Profiteers.
"So hear my plea, HIV/AIDS profiteers. Let my people go.