MetaFilter posts tagged with AIDS

A Cultural History of Syphilis

Mister Bijou — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:46:20 -0800

How syphilis took Europe by storm during the 1490s, and the far reaching effects it's had ever since

the failed ones, the grave disappointments, the apathetic, the careless

andoatnp — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:50:13 -0800

"The Sound of Stigma: An essay by Mark S. King—an AIDS advocate, an author and a blogger living with HIV since 1985—on why HIV stigma among gay men persists."

Not there yet, but cause for hope...

eviemath — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 07:57:08 -0800

Fourteen adults have also been "functionally cured" after they were given combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) for their HIV infection. [Warning: autoplay] They have been able to stop taking the treatment while still keeping their infection under control, according to a new study in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

There is an important distinction between 'functionally cured' and 'HIV negative'.

MedPageToday pointed out that while the 14 adults still technically have HIV in their bodies, it's only barely detectable when using highly sensitive laboratory methods. Therefore, they are considered "functionally cured" instead of being completely rid of the virus.... The findings suggest that anywhere from 5 to 15 percent of people are able to be "functionally cured" of HIV, the study researcher, Dr. Asier Saez-Cirion, told BBC News. "They still have HIV, it is not eradication of HIV, it is a kind of remission of the infection," Saez-Cirion told BBC News.

In other words, it's too soon to know yet if these individuals can still transmit HIV to others (though at least the likelihood of transmission would be lowered), and 85-95% of infected adults in the study were not functionally cured. This report follows that of a baby who was pronounced functionally cured of HIV recently (previously). Some skeptical researchers noted that, while the baby was certainly exposed to HIV, there's some doubt about whether the child had been infected with HIV:

In the case of the Mississippi baby, we know she was exposed to HIV, had HIV in her blood, and that at least some cells in her blood were found with sleeping virus—though we will likely never know if those cells were from the child or maternal cells that had been transmitted during pregnancy or birth. Was the baby infected with HIV and, thus, cured? To many of the researchers at the conference, the answer is "no." It seems more likely that her treatment prevented her, after exposure to HIV, from being infected. The reason we give medicines to both pregnant women and their newborns is precisely to prevent HIV exposures in children from becoming established infections, an intervention that can decrease the rate of transmission from about 30% to less than 1% in optimal conditions.

“How many condoms it is legal to carry in New York City?”

not_the_water — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:12:46 -0800

Arrested for carrying condoms? Maybe not any more. Last week, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced legislation that will prevent police from arresting or charging someone for sexual solicitation based solely on the possession of one or more condoms. Condoms are, in fact, already legal to own in any amount. But police and prosecutors around the country use the possession of condoms as a reason to harass or arrest sex workers. In a report [PDF] released last year, Human Rights Watch found it's a tactic used regularly in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco — cities with some of the high rates of HIV among sex workers. At the same time, those same cities give away an estimated 40 million condoms a year; New York City even has its own brand. “Sex workers in each city asked us how many condoms it was legal to carry,” said Megan McLemore, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “One woman in Los Angeles told us she was afraid to carry condoms with her and sometimes had to use a plastic bag instead of a condom with clients to try to protect herself from HIV.” Last year the Open Society Foundation also released [PDF] a report on the criminalization of condoms in Kenya, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, the United States, and Zimbabwe.

Risk

roomthreeseventeen — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 09:12:14 -0800

Two weeks ago, Lee Thompson ("Uncle Poodle" of Honey Boo Boo fame) gave an interview stating that he had successfully prosecuted his ex-boyfriend for transmitting HIV to him. Now, one blogger has come out saying that Uncle Poodle might actually be lying. Related: Mother Jones: Should Not Disclosing Your HIV Status Be a Crime? Imprisoned over HIV: One Man's Story Center for HIV Law and Policy: Positive Justice Project Consensus Statement on the Criminalization of HIV in the United States, Positive Justice Project/Center for HIV Law and Policy

291 diseases and injuries + 67 risk factors + 1,160 non-fatal complications = 650 million estimates of how we age, sicken, and die

hat — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:08:08 -0800

As humans live longer, what ails us isn't necessarily what kills us: five data visualizations of how we age, sicken, and die. Causes of death by age, sex, region, and year. Heat map of leading causes and risks by region. Changes in leading causes and risks between 1990 and 2010. Healthy years lost to disability vs. life expectancy in 1990 and 2010. Uncertainties of causes and risks. From the team for the massive Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010. The data visualizations page also includes a large number of static figures from the GBD 2010 study. The GBD 2010 team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research center at the University of Washington, "spent almost 5 years building [the database of causes of death]; we have included almost 800 million deaths from 1950 to 2010, and the data come from different sources," resulting in "the biggest database for cause of death analysis in the world," according to Rafael Lozano at the University of Washington. The GBD 2010 includes:

291 diseases and injuries
67 risk factors
1,160 sequelae (nonfatal health consequences)
Estimates for 21 regions
Estimates for 20 age groups

Takeaway points from the press release (emphasis mine):

Child mortality has dropped by more than 60%, falling "so quickly that it has beaten every published prediction," though diarrhea and other infectious diseases still kill well over a million children under the age of 5 every year.
Deaths among adults aged 15 to 49 increased by 44% between 1970 and 2010, "in part because of increases in violence and the ongoing challenge of HIV/AIDS."
Undernutrition has "successfully been cut by two-thirds," and now physical inactivity and macronutrient overnutrition contribute to a 10%-and-rising fraction of the disease burden.

However,

The trends identified in GBD 2010 occur across regions with one notable exception: sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses, and maternal causes of death account for as much as 70% of the burden of disease. By comparison, these conditions account for only one-third of the burden in south Asia and Oceania, and less than 20% in all other regions.

Research findings from the main publication summary (emphasis mine):

In 2010, the three leading risk factors for global disease burden were high blood pressure [...]; followed by tobacco smoking, including secondhand smoke [...]; and alcohol use [...] This reflects a substantial change from 1990 when the leading risk factors were childhood underweight [...]; followed by household air pollution from use of solid fuels [...]; and tobacco smoking, including secondhand smoke [...].
Regional differences are significant. While much of the world is burdened by obesity and high body mass index, underweight is still the leading risk factor in sub‐Saharan Africa. Other prevalent risk factors in the region include household air pollution and nonexclusive and discontinued breastfeeding.
Although child undernutrition has fallen significantly as a risk factor for all ages, it remained the leading risk factor worldwide in 2010 for children under 5, accounting for 12.4% of global DALYs [disability‐adjusted life years], followed by nonexclusive or discontinued breastfeeding at 7.6%.
A number of risks that primarily affect childhood communicable diseases, including unsafe water and sanitation and micronutrient deficiencies, declined in significance in the past 20 years, with unsafe water and sanitation accounting for only 0.9% of global DALYs in 2010.
At the same time, GBD 2010 findings show the importance of household air pollution from solid fuels and ambient particulate matter pollution as major risk factors. One or both rank in the top 10 as causes of disease burden in 13 of the 21 regions. In south Asia, they are the leading cause of burden.

From the Guardian's reporting (more: 1, 2, 3):

Since 1970 the largest gains in life expectancy have taken place in the Maldives (27.3 years for men and 29.4 years for women) and improvements in life expectancy at birth in excess of 20 years were recorded in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Iran, and Peru. But life expectancy fell by one to seven years in Zimbabwe and Lesotho, where populations were severely affected by HIV/Aids, and for men in Ukraine and Belarus, where an alcohol crisis took hold.

If you'd like to read the papers themselves, the full text is currently available for free (but registration required) at The Lancet. In addition to the data visualizations, the IHME provides GBD 2010 publication summaries: Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Healthy life expectancy for 187 countries, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Age‐specific and sex‐specific mortality in 187 countries, 1970–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Years lived with disability (YLDs) for 1,160 sequelae of 289 diseases and injuries, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Disability‐adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Common values in assessing health outcomes from disease and injury: disability weights measurement study for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010
Each of the data visualizations again:

Causes of death by age, sex, region, and year
Heat map of leading causes and risks by region
Changes in leading causes and risks between 1990 and 2010
Healthy years lost to disability vs. life expectancy in 1990 and 2010
Uncertainties of causes and risks

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation adds,

The findings are being announced at the Royal Society in London on Dec. 14 and published in The Lancet, the first time the journal has dedicated an entire triple issue to one study.

The Lancet includes The story of GBD 2010: a “super-human” effort:

“Running the programs to map the data to our cause list of 291 causes and correcting the bias can take days, even using a powerful cluster of more than 100 computers. The data that we have to store after the modelling process can take 3 terabytes.” [Rafael] Lozano estimates that the storage needed for the causes of death data was 400 times bigger than that for GBD 1990 [...] Majid Ezzati, chair in global and environmental health at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London, UK, told The Lancet, As researchers, we tend to believe that more ‘data’ are better than less. I still believe so. But more data, but not all the perfect data we could wish for, means that we need to fundamentally think differently about when to stop searching for more and how to use it [...] The study brought out the well-known but far too frequently overlooked issue that people of different scientific traditions—clinicians, basic scientists, epidemiologists, and quantitative scientists—think and speak differently about the same problem. This can of course be a very powerful resource for bringing together different ways of looking at a problem and solving in the most comprehensive and interesting way—a true systems approach. It can also be a challenge, and at times a source of tension.

(Previously on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation: Is there a market for years?)

An AIDS-Free Generation?

honeybee413 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:09:12 -0800

December 1st is World AIDS Day On World AIDS Day in 2011, President Obama spoke broadly of an “AIDS-free generation." How are we doing? This week, Madame Secretary Clinton released a blueprint via PEPFAR (the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) that aims to eliminate new HIV infections among children by 2015, improve access to testing and treatment to reduce AIDS-related mortality and enhance HIV prevention, and increase the number of circumcised males. Globally, 2011 saw an estimated 2.5 million people newly diagnosed with HIV and 1.7 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses, rates significantly decreased compared to figures from the previous decade. United Nations 2012 World AIDS Day Report United Nations World AIDS Day 2012 Fact Sheet However, there are some parts of the world in which the rates of new diagnoses have risen, including Greece, which saw a 35-fold increase in new cases of HIV in IV drug users, and 1049 new cases in the first 10 months of the year. Health care spending there has been cut because of the continuing fiscal crisis, and charities that serve populations affected by HIV have struggled to raise money. Access to antiretroviral therapy is improving globally, but there are still nearly 7 million people who are eligible for treatment and cannot access ARV medications (WHO 2011 statistics). On November 20, 2012, the United States Preventive Services Task Force released draft recommendations stating that clinicians should routinely test people from ages 15 to 65 for HIV infection, as well as older patients who are determined to be at increased risk. An unacceptable fraction of people infected with HIV don’t know they are infected. Do you know your status? If not, see where you can get tested here.

... which really should be pronounced "fra" and not "pra."

librarina — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:50:00 -0800

RIP Bob Quinn. If you've spent any time at the University of Washington, you'll likely recognize him as the guy who wandered, with his well-behaved off-leash dog, up and down the Ave, spending all day at various coffee shops and bookstores. Or if you were using heroin or were otherwise at high risk for HIV in North Seattle anytime between the 1980s and now, you likely recognize him because he may have saved your life. Quinn started handing out clean needles and condoms on the Ave the 1980s as a response to the AIDS epidemic. "The exchange in many ways was just a gut reaction. It was an emergency, something had to be done and so I did it," he said. "I didn’t think of the consequences or whether it was right or wrong. It needed to be done and I did what I had to do." His informal table in front of the old Tower Records has since morphed into the People's Harm Reduction Alliance, a needle distribution program that will bring needles to you anywhere in King County, and also offers Hepatitis C testing, vein care, and an all-women staff on Tuesdays. According to reports, he attempted suicide last week, and died at the hospital several days later.

FEAR THE ARTICHOKE KING

The Whelk — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:34:25 -0800

The History Of New York In 50 Objects (NYT)

"Watch closely. This is how gay men have sex now. That is where semen belongs. Fuck AIDS."

andoatnp — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:34:56 -0800

"The Most Important Gay Porn Film Ever Made?" [NSFW Warning: Pictures of a naked guy, no sex or penis shown.]
"Dawson's 20 Load Weekend redefined bareback porn and the men who appear in such porn. It influenced subsequent videos and expanded the availability of bareback films. It depicted a prevailing truth about gay sexual behavior "post-AIDS" and arguably encouraged risky sexual adventure-seeking. It led to the saturation of bareback porn online, making unprotected sex normative to whomever might be watching. To dismiss this film, to minimize its social and cultural impact, would be to demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of gay sexuality today."

The AIDS Quilt Online

Lutoslawski — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:49:12 -0800

Microsoft has posted the entire AIDS quilt online in a zoomable format. [AIDS quilt previously: 1,2]

Good HIV/AIDS news

roomthreeseventeen — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:08:26 -0800

Just as the 19th Annual International AIDS Conference is set to convene in Washington DC (the first IAC in the United States since 1987, when a travel ban was instituted and not lifted until 2009), President Obama has announced that his administration has invested $80 million in new grants for HIV/AIDS services, essentially eliminating the AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting lists, which currently hold the names of 2,030 Americans waiting for access to HIV-related health care.

Chagas Disease: Poverty, Immigration, and the ‘New HIV/AIDS’

Blasdelb — Wed, 30 May 2012 15:26:47 -0800

What if a deadly epidemic was burgeoning and almost nobody noticed? In the latest issue of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, a distinguished group of virologists, epidemiologists and infectious-disease specialists say that’s not a hypothetical question. They argue that Chagas disease, a parasitic infection transmitted by blood-sucking insects, has become so widespread and serious — while remaining largely unrecognized — that it deserves to be considered a public health emergency. Extending the metaphor, they liken Chagas’ stealth spread to the early days of AIDS:
"Both diseases are health disparities, disproportionately affecting people living in poverty. Both are chronic conditions requiring prolonged treatment courses… As with patients in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, most patients with Chagas disease do not have access to health care facilities. Both diseases are also highly stigmatizing, a feature that for Chagas disease further complicates access to … essential medicines, as well as access to serodiagnosis and medical counseling."
Hotez PJ, Dumonteil E, Woc-Colburn L, et al. (2012) Chagas Disease: “The New HIV/AIDS of the Americas”. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 6(5): e1498. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001498 Tanowitz HB, Weiss LM, Montgomery SP (2011) Chagas Disease Has Now Gone Global. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 5(4): e1136. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0001136 Sarkar S, Strutz SE, Frank DM, et al. (2010) Chagas Disease Risk in Texas. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 4(10): e836. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0000836

The pills are $2,000 every month. The doctor visits never end. And there's always the possibility the virus could spread. Otherwise, it's not so different.

liketitanic — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:23:18 -0800

Odd Blood: Serodiscordancy, or Life with an HIV-Positive Partner

AIDS Quilt - 25 Years Later ...

ericb — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:07:29 -0800

AIDS Quilt - 25 Years Later: Yesterday marked the end of the "largest showing of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in [San Francisco] since the NAMES Project Foundation -- the quilt's caretaker -- closed its original Market Street location in 1999 and relocated to Atlanta the following year."^♥ What started 25 years ago "as a single 3-foot-by-6-foot fabric panel has grown to a more than 54-ton tapestry with more than 47,000 panels remembering the [90,000] names of those lost to HIV/AIDS."

The Announcement

hippybear — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:46:12 -0800

Mr. George said in a telephone interview that his goal for “The Announcement” was not only to tell the inside story of Mr. Johnson’s personal deliberations but also to “make people aware this thing hasn’t disappeared.” He added: “People are still dying of the virus. People are living very tough lives because of it. It’s falling off the national agenda, I believe, and this in some way helps us reintroduce it.”*

On March 11, 2012 at 9pm Eastern, ESPN will air the documentary The Announcement, about Magic Johnson's diagnosis with HIV and his decision to go public with his diagnosis. The film is directed by Nelson George, a award-winning author and noted filmmaker whose sister is Andrea Williams, an HIV+ activist for AIDS causes in Brooklyn (and who inspired George's HBO movie Life Support, which won Queen Latifah several awards for her role as a fictionalized version of Williams).

Diamanda Galas

Trurl — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:21:25 -0800

Diamanda Galas sings "Gloomy Sunday" A fiercely confrontational avant-garde performer noted for her wailing, four-octave vocal range... Galás made her recorded debut in 1982 with The Litanies of Satan, a provocative work comprised of a vocal adaptation of a poem by Charles Baudelaire. After the prison-themed performance piece Panoptikon (documented on a self-titled 1984 release), she began developing a trilogy of albums known collectively as The Masque of the Red Death; released independently between 1986 and 1988 as The Divine Punishment, Saint of the Pit, and You Must Be Certain of the Devil, the three records catalogued Galás' litany against the AIDS epidemic, which claimed her brother, playwright Philip-Dimitri Galás, in 1986. She is also a fascinating interview subject.

People with AIDS on Stamps

incomple — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:47:43 -0800

Freddie Mercury, Anthony Perkins, Rock Hudson, and other people with AIDS on stamps

"An extremely significant milestone".

mhoye — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:37:34 -0800

Researchers from the University of Western Ontario have announced the launch of human clinical trials of a preventative HIV vaccine.

AIDS information posters from around the world

carter — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 04:55:16 -0800

AIDS information posters from around the world You can browse by country, topic, etc., and many of the posters have large linked images. Provided by UCLA's Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library. (Much as it pains me to say it, while these are public health information posters hosted by a medical library, for some, the content will be NSFW.)

Manya, a comic book

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:23:43 -0800

Manya was a short comic series, created in the ’90s, by writer Jen Benka and artist Kris Dresden. The sporadically published series covered life from the point of view of young female living in the city. A couple of those early issues are now available online:

Marie is about a meeting, of sorts, between Manya and Marie Curie, the scientist who did pioneering research on radiation.

Falling deals with the aftermath of the death of a friend from AIDS.

Jitterbug did an interview with Benka and Dresden, where they discussed the creation of Manya and other works.

Life After Death

jquinby — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:48:36 -0800

"The best way I can describe our predicament to someone outside our culture is to call up the sensation of orgasm. You lose control of your destiny, and you are grateful for the loss. Time dissolves. Nothing that came before matters. You lose all sense of consequences and would sacrifice anything to safeguard the moment. Then, just seconds later, the blighted past and an uncertain future rush back in to drown you." Michael Harris writes in Walrus Magazine about coming of age in the long shadow of the AIDS epidemic. via utne. [...] “You have to understand,” he said. “AIDS was gay culture. All the big events were AIDS fundraisers. All the plays, all the movies were AIDS plays and AIDS movies. It was a complete and total obsession, driven by a barely managed hysterical fear on everybody’s part.” The rallying call was simple: “Silence equals death.” The woefully inadequate response to AIDS in the early years was due largely to the invisibility of gay culture. AIDS forced its prey to fight for their lives and dignity, which in turn spurred a rapid acceleration of gay rights. I nodded quietly as Bryan told me about friends he had buried, as one must when hearing other people’s war stories, attention being the only appropriate contribution. One of his greatest friends had died just weeks before the drugs became available. “What happened in 1996, then? ” I asked. “How did things change when the drugs came out? ” Bryan sputtered, the way he does when three books are trying to exit his mouth at once. “Everything changed! The whole body of assumptions everyone carried around was gone. The death sentence was gone, virtually overnight, and the disease immediately went underground. Within a breathtakingly short period, it went from being a thing everybody talked about to a thing nobody talked about.”

Magic Johnson remains a living symbol of hope

2manyusernames — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 07:46:37 -0800

Magic Johnson still beating HIV 20 years later 2 decades after being diagnosed with HIV - the virus that causes AIDS, Magic Johnson is still going strong. His foundation is helping others, giving them hope while educating people about the disease.

"If you can't keep it zipped, keep it covered."

ChuraChura — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:58:30 -0800

University of Rochester's libraries curate a vast collection of AIDS education posters from around the world, with almost 1500 available to view online. (via)

Hard Times for Porn (Seriously)

bardic — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:28:03 -0800

"In the last few years, the rise of free online porn — content-rich sites that tease viewers to subscribe for more — and pay-site juggernauts like Brazzers have put the L.A.-based adult-video industry against the ropes. Its answer, in part, has been the high-dollar parody, designed to attract ComicCon nerds, science fiction fans and other pop culture aficionados who must collect everything within their target oeuvre." -- The troubled US economy affects pornstars too, so "Porn Defends The Money Shot" (NSFW) "And so many adult actors, particularly the women, are devolving to work as 'escorts,' a kinder term for prostitutes. Former performer Gina Rodriguez says that if the girls last one year in porn movies — most last only three to six months — they get hooked on the relatively big money and gravitate toward prostitution when the film producers seek fresh new faces and bodies. 'It's a money trap,' Rodriguez says. 'They take in the 18-, 19-year-olds, and within a year they'll be into escorting.'"