To keep quiet about HIV/AIDs

[sixtyandaquarter]

I've always heard it only takes 1 of something to infect.
1 spore of fungus can grow a colony. 1 itsybitsy bacteria, virus, scrap of DNA, what-have-you to cause a reaction. Otherwise... wouldn't it take more than 1 sperm only to fertilize an egg? And yes I know the whole reason there's so many of those little bastards is to guarantee as best as nature can that something reaches the egg - but virus' don't die out like a sperm.

The correct and consistent use of latex condoms during sexual intercourse- vaginal, anal, or oral-can greatly reduce a person’ s risk of acquiring or transmitting most STDs, including HIV infection, gonorrhea, chlamydia, trichomonas, human papilloma virus infection (HPV), and hepatitis B.

Greatly reducing is not absolutely preventing and totally eliminating the threat of. The words "correct and consistent use of latex condoms" shows this isn't, as Bluescope pointed out earlier, just misused and defective condoms. This is all condoms.
The words "can greatly reduce a person's risk" shows that's it. If it did otherwise they would have said so. Everywhere I looked would have said so, but they all use clearly and carefully picked words such as "reduce" and "help to prevent" - not fully prevents, but helps to.

http://aids.about.com/od/hivprevention/a/hivprevent.htm for the quote above, though there are better and smarter sites out there, this was just the last one I looked at before deciding not to look anymore.

 

[craybest]

I'm sorry, you're right about never being 100% sure that it won't pass through, because even if in theory a virus cannot get through a good condom, there is no such thing as a perfect condom, they always will have small flaws. however the words greatly reduce, clearly state that they DO stop most of the virus, and most of it doesn't get trough the condom.
And you DO need more than 1 virus in order to have HIV, a very small quantity won't make you get it, that's why you can't get it via kisses, there IS HIV virus in the saliva actually, but the concentration is so low that it's not dangerous, the exception is when the person who doesn't have it has for example a bleeding wound in his/her mouth. then it goes straight to his blood.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

But it doesn't matter if most of it gets threw or all of it gets threw. The minute one viral cell gets threw your danger level is increased exponentially. One viral cell is all it ever takes.

I can take any one viral cell, no matter what virus it is, and infect thousands of people with that one cell. It'll attach, infect, and spread. HIV - yes I need more, but it's not like only one is going threw - enough get threw that a large percentage of people claim to be on condoms when they are used. If it were faulty, all the anti-anti-sex people would be all over that in a heartbreak, we'd have huge discussions about the massive overbearing of faulty information, when even the most conservative of researchers are saying we are so misinformed and so under informed. It does take more than 1, my mistake. But it doesn't take the entire busted nut to infect, you can get it with a small amount - why would a needle be dangerous, if it didn't hit the vein but penetrated the skin if that small amount didn't do anything?

It's like wearing a bandaid over a cut when your cutting up poultry and other raw meats. Your chance of getting salmonella is reduced. Put on some lotions and gels on that cut and it greatly reduces your chance. But, you're still at risk of salmonella poisoning. It's actually the exact same percentage. So, if anyone wants to try, find yourself some sanitizer lotions, your every day neo sporan (sp?) a bandaid brand liquid (the percent is with liquid) bandages, and start messing around with raw chickens left and right. If you don't get sick, then you shoulda been out screwing, but if you do then it's just proof that nothing can protect you from a virus as long as it has contact - minuscule contact, doesn't matter because it is minuscule.

I know I sound like I'm arguing or just being bitchy, but I can't stress the fact that there is no 100% protection. None. A condom gives you only so much. A virus can still get threw because of it's size, and especially HIV because of it's resilience. Not to mention all the - now come on there's thousands at least - possible variants that can happen, including the misuse, mishandeling, and possible defectiveness (yes we already covered this). And the fact that - and it is a stretch true - but like salmonella in chicken, it's going to stay. You take that condom off, and there is - and yes it is a stretch - now possible infection on your hands.
Some argue that can spread - others say you'd have to go digging in there to spread, but if there's a chance it's noteworthy to look at.

I've heard people say they use spermacide condoms so they won't get HIV... I've heard people say they've double bagged... I've heard people say you can't get it from oral sex - the public is so misinformed it's pathetically sad on a global level. The best was a guy on PBS of all places say that the Muslim world was not at risk of "Allah's punishment" to the wicked because you can't get HIV if your not circumcised. Fact is, recent studies say you are more at risk there, but that's besides the point.

My own cousin in law told me that she can't get it from doing the "blood brother oath" (where you cut your thumb and rub it into someone else's sliced digit to swear that brotherly oath crap) because "it's not enough blood" and that HIV is only in the "sex organs and nerves"! He tried to convince people HIV doesn't exist in the fingers... 12th grade public education health - thanks.

I'm rambling, sorry. Just this is kind of close to home at the moment.


EDIT:
I just noticed something - but again it could be just hair splitting.
It says "greatly reduces" not "safely reduces". Medical jargon has always been picky - always. It's almost as stiff - and sometimes more so- as professional law. Any loophole will cause people to uproar when it comes to life and death, look at the cigarette companies and their former word usage compare to today's usage.

 

[craybest]

Well as both you and I both said, there's no 100% safe sex, but let's face it, we are sexual creatures, and sex is a part of us, most people out there want to have sex, and most of the time they are willing to take risks, to have it. There's also a lot of misinformation, like thinking you can't get it one or another way, and as I said, there IS a BIG difference if only a very small amount of virus get to you, or a big enough load to infect you, as I said, you cannot get it through kissing because the viral load is waay to low, and I'm pretty sure the saliva itself kills it.
but we're going off topic here, the topic was about why would you be forced to tell others when you have a STD but when you have HIV you're not. I don't know how things work around there, but in here you're not FORCED to tell anybody, you're just adviced to do so, and if you get HIV you're adviced to be very careful with who you tell it to, because of a single reason: DISCRIMINATION. people with HIV are heavily discrimitated, and specially with things like this, your state of mind is very important, so loosing your job/friends whatever have a huge impact on your health, and makes it a lot easier for HIV to develop into AIDS. the reason doctors advice you to be careful is because they care more about an actual HIV+ patient, than others that might not be.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Saliva doesn't kill the virus, it just carries it poorly. When most people say you can't get it from kissing, it's also assumed that you are not bleeding at the time. Tests have shown that the virus is not affected by saliva, while in blood and can in fact be passed on in certain conditions. Yes, it's a rare condition that hasn't happened - but that's no reason to say it can't happen, yes I'm splitting hairs I know. But it is off topic, and I'm stepping back from this now - just wanted to share the small point that while it hasn't happened, theoretically it can. And to correct it's not that the viral count is too low, it's that saliva is a horrible carrier of the virus, while blood and certain other bodily fluids are near perfectly suited.

Back to topic:
Discrimination? So because people with HIV are discriminated against, then it's okay to not let anyone know? And in a larger scope it's okay to allow people, threw no informative actions, to think it's okay and to do what they please.

So don't tell people your Jewish then.
Because if you don't let people know Jewish people are just like everyone else, then it's okay to spraypaint antisemitic materials on a synagogue.

Don't tell anyone you caught cancer, because then it's okay for people to laugh at your bald head - because we are not teaching them otherwise.

It's not an extreme point because there are extreme people out there who just don't care to consider things. Be it a bigotry towards someone for their faith, race, sex, disease, lifestyle, metal or physical handicaps, whatever it's still bigotry.

I'm not taking a point to an extreme, because if the discrimination is there it's all the more reason to get up and force information. The biggest killer of ignorant behavior is knowledge and acceptance, and if the quiet treatment and the don't upset the way it is thought is the ready action, then theres no wonder that when people lose a leg due to cancer there are people behind their backs lifting their legs and pretending to hop on one leg. That when my friend walks around her neighborhood people are going to assume she's a slut, harlot, whore, drug addict, whatever it is they assume, just because knowledge and the ability to notice theres something wrong there, is simply too much a responsibility to face and handle, like any other disease or any other fact of life people have regardless of if they want it or not, have it threw no fault of there own, or because it's making their lives a living hell to begin with, and now because other people might act wrongly to them, we'll just tell them to allow the quiet to continue and let other people infect more and more and more and more.

 

[craybest]

To me the point is that when 2 people engage in a sexual act, it's both their responsability, not just one of them, and I don't know the numbers around there but i think more than 1/3 of the people living with HIV doesn't even know it yet. and HIV tests doesn't prove much considering they just prove that 3-6 months ago you didn't have it. So when I engage in a sexual act, I'm fully aware of the risks it carries, even if the other person is showing me his/her HIV test.
Now don't get me wrong, in a ideal world, people with HIV would tell others about their status, specially their sexual partners, but again in a perfect world, there's no discrimination.
Discrminiation is not a problem in itself, but HIV atacks your defenses, and having a hell of a life does lower your defenses too, and that as I said, ahs a direct impact in your health. Another friend of mine, had HIV and was in pretty good health, until a few years ago he decided to tell one of his workmates, the point is that that guy told everyone in the office, and he got fired, just a few weeks after that, my friend had to start taking drugs, but it was already too late, and died like a year after that.
I think a person's life is a very important matter infact. Most doctors who study HIV agree that it's not considered a mortal disease anymore, because with the proper cautions, you can stay healthy, but it's VERY important that you take care of yourself, and be constantly checked. so to them it's more dangerous to a person's life, that a HIV+ patient gets depressed because he/she told the wrong person, than just to get HIV in the first place.

 

[Venetia]

Craybest I'm not really sure where you are getting some of your information from ... You sound like you know what you're talking about but a lot of it is skewed. I'm not sure where you're from but their perceptions on transmittability sound much different than the stance in the U.S.

HIV is a blood borne virus. It can lay dormant for years, and that's when it's treatable; doctors have found ways for people to prolong the amount of time it's dormant (temporarily). But when it activates, it becomes AIDs.

AIDs procreates by invading white blood cells, destroying the parts of its DNA which tells it to stop dividing (much like cancer), and then replaces it with a line of code which tells it to create more AIDs viruses (unlike cancer). The white blood cell is then unable to reproduce itself, but it rather just becomes an AIDs factory. When the white blood cell dies, that's it. There are no backups.

Once all the white blood cells are gone, a simple common cold can kill you, because you have no defenses. AIDs won't kill you, anything else will. AIDs just invites everybody in for the killing spree.

The AIDs virus doesn't all gang up on white blood cells and beat them up-- they're too small and lack all known forms of intelligence.

Rather, imagine a ... A hypothetical bug called a deathworm. The deathworm is transmitted to you through, say, food. Somehow it invades your reproductive organs, and suddenly every sperm you make is instead a deathworm. They build up and build up, and you're never able to make kids. If they make it into a woman, and she's pregnant with a still-forming female fetus, the deathworms replace all the baby's eggs with deathworms. Suddenly these people can no longer make babies, and within 1-2 generations their families are wiped out completely, leaving only piles and piles of deathworms which escape, infect more food, and cause the human race to be wiped out, one generation at a time.

***

Off the metaphor.

Now then, your digestive tract is highly volatile, and seldom is your bloodstream able to pass into it. If a bloodborne virus were transmitted into your digestive tract (like if you kissed someone with a bloody mouth or did something gross like eat a scab), it's highly likely that the virus'll just burn up in your stomach and pass out of you harmlessly. I said it's highly likely that'd happen. There's always a slight chance you have a tiny fissure in your mouth or digestive tract which allows the virus passage into your bloodstream.

You only need one HIV or AIDs virus to be in your bloodstream. The second it finds a white blood cell (which it will, as it's the WBC's job to find and destroy things like viruses), it'll invade and make innumerous copies of itself.

Were it able to be airborne, it quite possibly could be the perfect killer.

And that's why you have to maintain 100% safety with the disease. Never exchange needles, touch something bleeding, kiss on the mouth, or swap genital fluid, with an HIV or AIDs carrier. Other interactions are fine. So long as you're not having sex with them or bleeding all over them while they're bleeding on you, you should have nothing to worry about with an AIDs/HIV carrier.

 

[craybest]

Most of the info I have its stuff I've asked doctors about, I don't know what's the big difference between our perceptions of transmittability.
actually as far as I know, the HIV virus is never dormant, it might be keeped in small amounts, with medicines, or just because you recently got infected, but it starts replicating as soon as you get infected.
AIDS isn't when the virus "awakes" it's when your cd4 cells get lower than, let's say 200 (I'm not sure about the number) then you get diagnosed AIDS, but it's not because the virus was dormant before, but because the virus managed to kill most of the cd4 (that's your defenses) the virus starts killing your cd4 as soon as you get infected too, so it's not dormant.
I didn't say that kissing is 100% secure, but it's VERY rare that someone gets HIV because of only kissing, ,most of the time it happens (which is still pretty low) is when there exist wounds in the mouth. I think any doctor/internet site will tell you that.
chances are like 1 in 500.000 or something of the like (not sure about that neither, got it from random internet sites)
here's a quote from some site:

Kissing

There is no scientific evidence indicating that any person has ever become infected through kissing an HIV positive person.

To become infected with HIV you must get a sufficient quantity of the virus into the bloodstream. Saliva does contain HIV, but the virus is only present in very small quantities and as such cannot cause HIV infection.

Unless both partners have large open sores in their mouths, or severely bleeding gums, there is no transmission risk from mouth-to-mouth kissing.

So it has to be a pretty bad wound, not just any scratch. (http://www.avert.org/howcan.htm)

"Saliva, tears, sweat and urine can have the virus in them, but in such small concentrations that nobody has ever been infected through them. However, if any body fluid is visibly contaminated with blood, the risk of transmission exists."

I beg to differ, miss Lisa. The risk of getting HIV through saliva alone isn't "not too great" - it is essentially non-exixtent.
I will, however agree with Lisa on refraining from *deep* kissing for a bit, just to be on the safer side - and especially for your own peace of mind.
Also, lots of factors go into this, such as his viral load, his dental health, etc. Read below.

Can I Get HIV from Kissing?
According to Dr. K of the San Francisco City Clinic, "The overwhelming evidence points to the fact that kissing, including French kissing, is in no way a risk for transmitting HIV. You don't need to get re-tested if the only potentially risky activity you've engaged in was French kissing with an HIV positive partner."

(http://gaylife.about.com/od/hivaid1/qt/hivkissing.htm)
So it seems it's not really something to be scared about. STILL you could be the 1 case in a million that gets it that way, but HIGLY unlikely.
I didn't find any site at all where it would say that kising a person with HIV is actually dangerous.
if you want to be 100% sure though don't do it, but that's like fearing that if a HIV+person sneezes and just had a bad case of nose/mouth bleeding and the blood jumped and then landed on a wound of yours, HIGLHY unlikely, but hey, there's still a chance, right?
the virus is ALWAYS treatable, the problem is that medicines not always work, because the virus could have become invulnerable to a certain medicine, or because the treatement got too late and still an oportunist disease managed to kill the patient before the medicines could take effect. the medicines both raise your cd4 cell count, and lower your hiv virus count, but obviously doesn't kill it. (if your body doesn't respond well to the medicine it won't work).

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

and if you get HIV you're adviced to be very careful with who you tell it to, because of a single reason: DISCRIMINATION. people with HIV are heavily discrimitated, and specially with things like this, your state of mind is very important, so loosing your job/friends whatever have a huge impact on your health, and makes it a lot easier for HIV to develop into AIDS. the reason doctors advice you to be careful is because they care more about an actual HIV+ patient, than others that might not be.

So don't tell anyone because you might get worse and die? You're going to die anyway, and you can stop the spread of the disease, but that's okay -shhh... we wouldn't want you to be under any extra stress....

but i think more than 1/3 of the people living with HIV doesn't even know it yet.

But as long as we're quiet about it, you know, so no one gets stressed out...

Discrminiation is not a problem

Firstly, you say discrimination is why people are advised to be careful about who they tell.
You say that a third of all infected peoples know not that they have a disease.
And then you say discrimination is not a problem (in itself)

So... what I got, and no I'm not saying this is your point, it's mine, was that:
"Got HIV? Tha's alright. Stay quiet so people won't hurt your feelings, we wouldn't want you to cry and feel worse than you already are because other people don't understand what's going on - and why bother educating them. We don't mind if the people you might have infected know or not, because telling them has a chance of causing you mental anguish.

And you know, if they unknowingly infect more people, and the people they infect unknowingly infect more, and so forth down the line in one glorious swivel chain of silent ignorance - just as long as your able to cope, that's all that matters"

Stay quiet and people die we have an epidemic.
Stand the hell up and do what you have to do to save lives and guess what? Wow... instead of 1 out of 4 people in some regions having AIDS compared to 1 out of 17 being at risk to get AIDs we can increase those numbers. Sure, the 1 out of 4 who HAVE aids will not go away because of this, but what about those 1 out of 17?

I dunno about you, but I'd rather make 1 cry like a bitch into their little sterilized pillows, while pneumonia eats their life than let the 16 others do the same thing.

 

[craybest]

Don't get me wrong, I never said that you shouldn't tell your sexual partners about it, but my point is that I understand that most people who have it are to scared to tell others about it. I don't think it should be ENFORCED, are you ENFORCED to tell others when you have a cold? absolutely not! because it's not dangerous you think. but what if a person who has AIDS gets your cold because you didn't tell him, and then dies because of it? If we're not enforced to tell people about all of our contagious diseases then why are STD's any different?
By the way I never said doctors tell you NOT to tell anyone about your HIV+state, they just advice you to be careful with who you tell it to, they're not telling you "it's ok, just keep on spreading it"
But they think (so do I) that the possibilities of passing it to another person through safe sex are very very slim, so as long as you take precautions, you can still have a sex life.
The problem of the pandemic isn't the people who got it through safe sex, those are the minority, most of them got from unsafe sex, or drugs or other stuff. If people would actually do safe sex always, HIV would have never gotten where it is now.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I am enforced to tell others if I have any STD other than the biggest widest spread killer of them all.
Herpes, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, hell even crab lice! But not AIDs? Which kills more than any other STD in the US.

Doctors don't not tell you, they advice you to stay quiet if you want, which is the exact same to a frightened youth. And I know I used your words out of content, it was deliberate because this is how people think in the world, and it's a sad state.

 

[craybest]

My points is that no STD should be enforced to tell others, of course I think it's unfair that if you had an std you're forced to tell others but not with hiv.

 

[Fafnir]

My points is that no STD should be enforced to tell others, of course I think it's unfair that if you had an std you're forced to tell others but not with hiv.

Why not have it the other way around, ALL STDs should be enforeced, ESPECIALLY HIV and AIDs?

 

[craybest]

why then not make it ALL the way around and make it so EVERY SINGLE contagious disease has to be enforced then? Sure, a cold might not be dangerous to you, but it is VERY dangerous to someone who has aids for example, a simple cold can kill them, so it should be enforced just as much as std's.
What I'm trying to say is that STD's shouldn't be treated different from any other contagious disease. and if you're not enforced to tell those, why are you enforced to tell std's?

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Why not do that?
Because what disease kills on the level HIV/AIDs does and is spread on the sole purpose people are ignorant.

I have every right to know if I'm in danger of infection. I have every right to know if the building I live in, work in, etc... is encased in toxic wastes, asbestos, and god knows what else. I have every right to know if pursuing sexual activity with someone with a flu or not can pass it on me.

Then again this isn't the flu. Influenza may still be the biggest killer of man in history, but am I ever going to die from it? Will it ever change my life dramatically? Will it ever be looked at as a suicidal decision to go and throw disregard to the warnings.

If I have TB I have to inform people. Hundreds of infections are on a list that "has" to be informed. My sister works in an ER, she has to tell them some really embarrassing things if they ever asked - if she was going to be fully truthful.

Many jobs I've worked at required dozens of illnesses from TB down the list to the flu to be notified in advance. One job I was sent home for because of a heat rash because of the possibility it could be infectious. Not to me, but that something could be in there that would spread to others.

My friend had to take a week off and go on medicine and see a doctor, pay for the visit himself or lose his job based on a foot fungus.

HIV? Same level as a heat rash? Foot fungus? Herpes? Cause if I had herpes I'd have to let people know along with some of these really stupid things on this list.

I used to believe very few things should be enforced.
I used to believe in a social anarchism like doctrine. I noticed, however, people are very -what's the proper wording?- bias to be complacent. We are naturally eager to allow things that do not bother us directly to affect us, and are very smart at tricking ourselves. We believe in pipe dreams and can easily hold our opinions based on transparent metaphors or comparisons. I'm not saying you Craybest, or anyone here - a stark generalization I guess.

Unless the not-so-rare-people who get affected by these things, and thankfully it's no small percentage, decide to either do something or say something, even though it's still not enough, then we would be very happy to let the infected continue infecting. As long as it doesn't bother our set of morals. This bothers my set of morals, and while they aren't good morals they're all I have.

And because it's affecting me now, and has in the past, it has altered my beliefs. I still think some things should never be enforced, but I believe in the safety in a bigger picture of the future, than the present tense. I'd rather have thousands die cold horrible deaths than millions. Millions have already died. I'm fine to enforce away a few "liberties" such as the right to kill someone because you didn't feel like telling them, I'd much rather see others protected than let one person allow that.

 

[craybest]

Well, as I told you before, I'm not sure how things work in there, around here, no disease is enforced, none at all, so I guess if some are enforced, then all should be, you're right.
However in the hiv case, you can never, ever be sure that there's no risk with someone, if it that peson got his results the very same day, that doesn't prove anything, so you always have to be careful.
but I insist that with sex, it's both partner's responsability, if the person shows you his/her HIV test, and he's negative, then you decide to have unprotected sex, and then you get infected because he had been infected with hiv in a period that the examen couldn't tell, then you can't put all hte blame in him/her, it was both your decision, even if you "though" there was no risk, there's ALWAYS a risk for it to happen.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I'm not debating the possibility of two people showing each other their test results and doing what they want based on that - or any other thing.

I'm merely debating the one who knows they have it, and didn't tell anyone. And the girl who was with him some months ago, who could be spreading it because no one knows any better.

And the guy who knows he has it, and still doesn't open his mouth to the people he's with. No one can say the person he's with is as responsible for their probable infection on that. It's like rolling over in bed and being shot because the person you are with for a night never told you they keep a loaded gun under their pillow when the safety's off.

 

[Zabby]

I still consider HIV/AIDS to have a huge stigma. In sex ed, when we were given the talk on using condoms and STIs, it wasn't as if people were blase about HIV and not about other ones, especially since HIV/AIDS is a life-long, incurable infection. At the same time, I wouldn't look down on anyone who acquired it (we all make poor choices at times in our lives, if it even was a choice to start with).

I am torn on legally enforcing people to reveal their STIs. If you are getting into bed with someone, it is your responsibility to ask about someone's history, to protect yourself, and to remind yourself of the risks. That said, it is in extremely poor taste for someone not to let their partners know of any infections they have, HIV or otherwise, treatable or not. If I went to all the steps to protect myself, asked about a person's history and all that only to find out they purposefully lied, I know that I would want some kind of retribution.

While abstinence is the best way to protect yourself, it is unreasonable to expect that people will avoid sexual contact. We all take risks in the choices we make, but it is unfair to place the blame on someone who minimized those risks while the other knowingly infects people with HIV or any other STI.

 

[Andy6000]

Firstly, damn I haven't seen you in forever, welcome back to the terrible symposium!

Secondly, this is a pretty touchy subject. HIV is dangerous, it may not necessarily be your fault for getting it (or it may and you know, how zabby said, mistakes happen), but it's still your fault if you spread it after you know you have it, and considering it's a slow kill, you should most definitely be held responsible for it. HOW is a good question that I simply do not know, and don't much want to field an answer to right now!

 

[Lene]

I think they probably made reporting HIV an option due to all the discrimination people face(d) when they let that information out. But honestly, I would hope that doctor in your example 60.25 is a fluke.

Someone probably knows your friend has an STD though, if your health department is doing their job...