Three million long-haul truckers traverse India's 8,000-kilometer highway network for months at a time. According to studies, more than
two-thirds of those men are having frequent
unprotected sex, and
it's a big problem. Seena Taan Ke is a
campaign that's underway to create AIDS/HIV awareness among the truckers, featuring Bollywood celebrities as well as Hollywood celebrity
Richard Gere. It's a good thing for a good cause. Well, up until Richard got a little frisky onstage and
planted some kisses on Big Brother winner/Bollywood star
Shilpa Shetty. Crowds of Indians are now burning effigies of both
Gere and
Shetty in protest.
"Such a public display is not part of Indian tradition." said the spokesman for Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata. Well, so much for AIDS awareness for truckers.
posted by miss lynnster
on Apr 16, 2007 -
73 comments
Judy's tour diary (pdf, somewhat long) isn't your standard travelogue. The author is
Judy Porter, a professor of sociology from Bryn Mawr Collge. Her expertise in the fields of AIDS and poverty are apparent as she paints a vivid picture of life in West Africa, and the health and social conditions that come with it. She also set up a
web page that has links to a number of photo slide shows and hand shot video footage.
West Africa has been extensively discussed previously.
posted by The Straightener
on Mar 16, 2007 -
6 comments
Shortly before his cancer diagnosis, Peter Jennings started work on a one-hour documentary devoted solely to the issue of AIDS in Black America. ABC News has now finished his work in a one-hour Special Edition of "Primetime," reported by Terry Moran.
"In America today, AIDS is virtually a black disease, by any measure," says Phill Wilson, executive director of The Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. Black Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for over 50 percent of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That infection rate is eight times the rate of whites. Among women, the numbers are even more shocking—- almost 70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States are black women. Black women are 23 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women, with heterosexual contact being the overwhelming method of infection in black America.
posted by jennababy
on Aug 24, 2006 -
50 comments
Bonofilter: Yesterday, May 16, U2 front-man Bono was a guest "editor" for the UK newspaper
The Independent. Called the
"RED Edition," half of this issue's proceeds went "to help fight HIV and AIDS among women and children in Africa." Highlights included US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice offering her take on
"The Ten Best Musical Works" and an
interview with Eddie Izzard on immigration in Europe. Is there a downside to celebrity editing, or is it a win-win-win for Bono, The Independent, and some people in need?
posted by bardic
on May 17, 2006 -
33 comments
Who goes to POZ Parties? Researchers profile HIV-1 positive men who have sex with men (MSM) at so-called "
POZ parties": "Predominantly white and over the age of 30, subjects in the sample include a broad range of years living with HIV infection. Motivations for using a POZ Party venue for sexual partnering include relief from burdens for serostatus disclosure, an interest in not infecting others, and opportunities for unprotected sexual exchange. High rates of unprotected sex with multiple partners are prevalent in the venue. Although the sample evidences high rates of lifetime exposure to illicit drugs, relatively little drug use was reported in these sexual environments."
posted by docgonzo
on Dec 19, 2005 -
42 comments
First World AIDS Day: CBC archive A short clip from December 1st, 1988, the first World AIDS Day (with a Canadian focus). Also of interest from the CBC archives are
two pages of radio and video clips (21 in all) on the early years of the disease.
posted by livii
on Dec 1, 2005 -
18 comments
Today is
World AIDS Day around the world. Millions die from this disease every year, and I wish that we still devoted a whole day worth of links to AIDS. (You can still see it in the yearly December archives.) Also there's other info at
Wikipedia. Please give a little to the effort if you can.
posted by wheelieman
on Dec 1, 2005 -
5 comments
Crocodile Immune System Kills HIV Because crocodiles fight amonst themselves and get seriously wounded from time to time they developed incredibly strong immune systems and natural antibiotics. So strong that they, well, let's hear from one of the scientists....
"The crocodile has an immune system which attaches to bacteria and tears it apart and it explodes. It's like putting a gun to the head of the bacteria and pulling the trigger," said Australian scientist Adam Britton.
Sounds like good news to me.
posted by fenriq
on Aug 16, 2005 -
45 comments
Updatefilter: Remember all the uproar over the new AIDS superbug? Well, think again. NY Magazine tells all about the "medical panic attack":
... After the frenzy died down, however, the new epidemic began to look a lot less fearsome. In fact, on closer examination, almost everything about this case seems murky. An investigation by the Department of Health turned up no evidence that the New York man passed the virus to anybody. And on March 29, the department put out a press release saying that the patient was responding well to his medications. ... “I thought this sounded familiar, so I Googled ‘superbug’ and ‘AIDS,’” said GMHC’s Gregg Gonsalves. He found two cases reported in 2001 by a noted Vancouver AIDS specialist, Dr. Julio Montaner. The Vancouver Sun quoted Montaner about the cases, but he could have been describing the newest Patient Zero ...
March post on it here
posted by amberglow
on Apr 24, 2005 -
14 comments
"The Global Gag Rule Impact Project is a collaborative research effort ... the project's objective is to document the effects of the Global Gag Rule on the availability of life-saving family planning services, as well as efforts to address other major threats to public health, including HIV/AIDS and maternal deaths due to unsafe abortion." This interactive database allows you to explore the impact that the Mexico City Policy has had on healthcare worldwide.
posted by OmieWise
on Apr 21, 2005 -
2 comments
HIV prevention efforts are failing. Last year, the discovery of a New York man with a novel form of drug-resistant HIV that rapidly progressed to AIDS caused some to warn of the emergence of a "
superbug." The first clinical analysis of the case
will be published Saturday in The Lancet (
NYT preview); Dr. Martin Markowitz concluded the cause of the rapid progression to AIDS may be incomplete -- but that efforts to prevent the epidemic must be redoubled, especially in light of the growing use of
methamphetamines. Dr. Carlos del Rio
is blunt: "This is telling us that AIDS prevention programs have been a failure." The Gay Men's Health Crisis
agrees.
posted by docgonzo
on Mar 17, 2005 -
79 comments
If your European ancestors survived the
Bubonic Plague 700 years ago, they very likely may have also passed on to you a mutation of the CCR5 gene -- called
delta 32. This may not sound exciting, but delta 32 is a powerful mistake. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, attacks the human immune system, infecting the white blood cells sent to destroy it. The delta 32 mutation, however, effectively blocks the crucial gateway into human cells the virus needs. In fact, possessing delta 32 could save your life, and the lives of your children.
posted by lola
on Mar 8, 2005 -
47 comments
National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness & Information Day February 7, 2005 Seventy-two African-Americans are infected with HIV every day African-Americans make up approximately 12 percent of the population of the United States, yet 38% percent of total AIDS cases reported in this country are among members of the Black community. In 2003, more African Americans were reported to have HIV/AIDS than any other racial/ethnic group.
posted by halekon
on Feb 7, 2005 -
10 comments
The Church Awakens "The AIDS pandemic is the greatest humanitarian crisis," Casey said. "It just begs a reaction from the church."
The church is now in full reaction mode. More than 2,000 Christian medical professionals, church leaders, and students gathered for the ninth annual Global Missions Health Conference, November 11-13, at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. They spoke not only of statistics that confirmed the extent of the pandemic (43 million people living with HIV/AIDS; 8,000 deaths each day; 14 million orphans), but of working together.
posted by halekon
on Dec 21, 2004 -
62 comments
