by yoursl | Nov 19, 2015 | HIV and AIDS, Sex in the News, Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
Charlie Sheen became the talk of the nation’s press once more, but not for his usual reasons. During a live interview on The Today Show on Tuesday, Sheen announced to the world that he is HIV-positive. The 50-year-old actor was accompanied by his University of California, Los Angles, physician, Dr. Robert Huizenga, who helped explain Sheen’s diagnosis and treatment during the actor’s interview. Sheen was diagnosed with HIV in 2011, during what he has said was a not-so-good time in his life. Since his HIV diagnosis, Sheen has taken daily antiretroviral medications, which has lowered his HIV viral count to such a low level, less than 20 copies of the virus in his blood, that the virus itself is undetectable in HIV blood tests. Even in a patient with a low viral load, HIV lives in reservoirs inside that person’s body. To keep these virus reserves from spreading and to continue to maintain a low viral load, the infected person must take daily antiretroviral therapy or the virus will begin to spread inside the body again. Sheen maintains that his low viral load means he cannot pass HIV to another person, even if he has unprotected sex with that person. This is partially true. Studies have shown that HIV positive persons taking daily antiretroviral therapy have just a four percent chance of passing the virus to an uninfected person during unprotected sex. There is one thing Sheen, and anyone else living with HIV, should do for ethical reasons and must do per the law in 24 American states, including Sheen’s home state of California: tell potential sex partners he...
by yoursl | Oct 8, 2015 | HIV and AIDS, LGBT, Men's Sexual Health, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Women's Sexual Health |
At the end of September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against a Subway franchise located in Sheridan, Indiana. The lawsuit alleges that employee John Doe was hired to work at the store on January 1, 2015. Twelve days later, the employee disclosed his HIV-positive status to the store manager. Doe reported to the EEOC that, on February 14, his supervisor called him at home to fire him, telling Doe he might be a liability to the company. The day after the lawsuit was filed, Indianapolis-based radio station 103.3 invited its listeners to call in during a morning show to voice their opinions over the air about the lawsuit. I listened to part of this broadcast and was blown away by some of these callers and their sheer ignorance of HIV in terms of how the virus spreads and how long the virus lives outside the body. Feeling inspired by this radio broadcast, I have created this HIV transmission fact sheet using information obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AIDS Vancouver Island and online resources aidsmap.com and aids.gov. There are three stages of HIV infection. The first stage is acute infection, in which large amounts of the virus are being produced in the body. Within 2 to 4 weeks of initial infection, many people develop flu-like symptoms, which is the body’s natural response to HIV infection. The second stage of HIV infection is clinical latency, in which the virus reproduces at very low levels, although it is still alive. With proper HIV treatment, people can live with clinical latency for several decades. The...
