Estimates claim that more than one-half of all South African individuals aged 15 years in 2006 will not survive to 60 years of age. Hence, creating awareness about dangerous and risky sexual behaviors in youngsters may help reduce the number of HIV patients. In order to test the ability of a school-based prevention program in such an environment, experts triggered a cluster-randomized, controlled study. The analysis included 18 primary schools in Eastern Cape Providence, South Africa and two six-session behavior-change interventions based on extensive investigations.

Experts allege, “In conclusion, sexual transmission of HIV is a major risk faced by adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, and interventions are needed urgently to reduce their risk. This study provides the first evidence that a theory-based, contextually appropriate intervention can reduce sexual risk behaviors, particularly unprotected vaginal intercourse, vaginal intercourse and multiple partners, among young South African adolescents in the earliest stages of their sexual lives. Future research with more sexually experienced adolescents will have to explore whether such interventions can have an effect on condom use and STDs, including HIV.”

John B. Jemmott III, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues randomly assigned nine schools to participate in the HIV/STD intervention. This intervention aimed to teach students ways of avoiding HIV and other STDs. It created awareness about abstinence and condom use, and increase the skills and self-confidence required for choosing less risky behaviors. The intervention focused on behaviors associated with other disorders, like heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

1,057 children with an average age of 12.4 years were questioned about sexual behaviors before and three, six and 12 months after the intervention. Having conducted three follow-ups, investigators noted a smaller percentage of students in the HIV/STD risk reduction group than the health promotion group. Unprotected vaginal intercourse was reported by 2.2 percent from the HIV/STD risk reduction group and 4.2 percent from the health promotion group. Vaginal intercourse was registered by 4.8 percent of HIV/STD risk reduction group and 7.2 percent of health promotion group. 1.8 percent of HIV/STD risk reduction group and 3.2 percent of health promotion group had multiple sexual partners.

The study is published in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

CDC: 20% of Gay Men Are HIV-Positive, but Nearly Half Don’t Know It
Really? How did the CDC even study “gay men,” since we’re a population that’s not all in one place and is hard to define (we still don’t have a good estimate of how many America Americans identify as gay because of the slipperiness around identity and the fact that not everyone will tell a pollster their sexuality). If one were to look at the study, which is linked at the bottom of the Time piece so one assumes the writer and editors had access to it, it doesn’t make that claim at all.

I won’t fault Time’s Meredith Melnick for that incorrect headline; she probably didn’t write it. And whoever did was probably more interested in shocking than in describing the truth. Melnick gets a little closer in her lede, but she still is several ball parks away:

Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 1 in 5 sexually active gay and bisexual men in America are HIV-positive but that 44% of them don’t know it.
Interesting, since an earlier study this year in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases estimated that 11.8% of MSM were seropositive and the CDC estimated in 2006 that 79% of those who were poz knew it. That’s a pretty big change in numbers over a short amount of time.

But that’s just her first paragraph, where at least she now tells us that the study wasn’t just of gay men, but of MSM, which includes bisexual men and men who don’t identify as either gay or bi but who have sex with men (whether that makes them gay or bi is entirely up to you, but having sex with a man doesn’t automatically make someone gay). But that wasn’t the only problem.

Time’s Melnick says something different in the second paragraph, without acknowledging at all that her first two paragraphs contradict one another:

More than 8,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual men (or, as the researchers call them, MSM, for men who have sex with men) were tested by CDC workers in the 21 American cities with the highest infection rates. The gay population in Baltimore had the highest rates of HIV infection, at 38%, while Atlanta scored lowest, at 6%.
(A small quibble: 1% of those who participated in the study identified as “straight.”)

In her first paragraph, the CDC released data about HIV infection rates among “sexually active gay and bisexual men in America” (emph. mine). In her second paragraph, the CDC released data about HIV infection rates among “MSM… in the 21 American cities with the highest infection rates.” That changes things a bit. Contrary to popular belief, men who have sex with men don’t live exclusively in 21 urban areas in the United States.

So the title, the first paragraph, and the second paragraph all make different, contradictory statements about the study, with no acknowledgement or explanation from Time. Which is correct? A casual reader wouldn’t know, and it’s unlikely anyone at Time understands. Many people would probably just read the title, which is the worst of the three, and move on unaware that they’ve been misled. We’re paid to write shocking stories, not report the facts! Melnick and her editors at Time protest.

Anyway, for those who’d like to know, the second paragraph is the one that gets closest, and it’s the one least likely to be read. And it’s still not good enough.

Here’s part of the note that was attached to the study on the CDC’s site, which is actually important to understanding the study (Melnick doesn’t mention any of this information in her shocking Time piece since it takes a lot of shock out of the story):

The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, because the survey was administered by an interviewer, positive HIV status might have been underreported during the interview, given the sensitive nature of the topic, thereby inflating estimates of MSM unaware of their infections. Second, 135 MSM who reported being HIV-positive but who had a negative or indeterminate HIV test result were excluded from analysis because of the possibility that they had false-negative NHBS test results; however, including these men as HIV-positive would have yielded a similar overall HIV prevalence (20% compared with 19%). Third, comparisons of the NHBS-MSM datasets collected during 2004–2005 and 2008 should be made cautiously, because this analysis did not control for demographic differences in the samples, which might have influenced the percentages reported. Finally, these findings are limited to men who frequented MSM-identified venues (most of which were bars [45%] and dance clubs [22%]) during the survey period in 21 MSAs with high AIDS prevalence; the results are not representative of all MSM. A lower HIV prevalence (11.8%) has been reported among MSM in the general U.S. population (8).
The CDC acknowledge four limitations to this study, two of which are major limitations that I’ll discuss.

In the third limitation, they acknowledge that demographics weren’t controlled for. Consider the income of the people tested — over 30% reported incomes under $20K a year. The Census Bureau only estimated 20% of US household income being below this line in 2009, which isn’t a direct comparison since gay households’ incomes are less and we’re more likely to have a single income for a single person than straight people. On the other hand, they investigated urban areas which have higher costs of living and incomes.

Either way, I can’t find comparable data focusing only on the same 21 urban areas and providing information about individual income, and apparently the CDC didn’t either since they didn’t control for demographics. Since socioeconomic status is one of the major factors that defines HIV infection rates, data that doesn’t reflect a representative sample of America’s economic reality can’t be used to make sweeping statements about “gay and bisexual men in America.”

23% of the people studied were “Black, non-hispanic”; 12.4% of America is. 25% of the people in the study were “Hispanic”; about 15% of America identifies as such. Again, perhaps that’s representative of these 21 urban areas, but we don’t know that and it means that the data isn’t representative of “gay and bisexual men in America.”

34% of those studied had “no” health insurance, while the un-insurance rate in the US is estimated at 15.4%. This relates specifically to the stories (like the one at Time) that stress how few “gay and bisexual men in America” know they’re HIV-positive. If the study focused heavily on the uninsured, then it’s more likely to show that people don’t know they have a certain virus. This stuff isn’t complicated.

The fourth caveat that the CDC lays out is also important: they found their subjects at bars and dance clubs that are “MSM-identified venues.” They’re missing a lot of people that way since lots of urban MSM (like me) don’t frequent gay bars and clubs. They cruise online or in parks. They’re in relationships or don’t cruise at all. They live far away from any gay bars. They don’t like gay bars for a variety of reasons. Maybe they just didn’t go to that one bar on the night they were recruiting people for this study. Maybe they didn’t want to take part in this study (only 43% of people who were “approached” agreed to participate, making the study self-selecting and not even controlled for basic demographics). Etc.

Of course, none of those caveats made it into the Washington Post story on these data, which ran with this headline and lede:

Study puts HIV rate among gay men at 1 in 5
One in five gay men in the United States has HIV, and almost half of those who carry the virus are unaware that they are infected, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

The Post’s Darryl Fears goes on to call this study “the most comprehensive such research by the CDC,” without mentioning any of the caveats the CDC laid out.

Even more frustrating is that the CDC specifically says “comparisons of the NHBS-MSM datasets collected during 2004 — 2005 and 2008 should be made cautiously,” but Fears spends three paragraphs making lazy comparisons between those two exact studies. “[T]he percentage of minorities who tested positive changed dramatically in the three years since the previous study,” Fears tells us, not telling us what the CDC know, that the samples in the two studies are different and neither controlled for demographics so comparisons between the two are likely to be inaccurate.

Not that any of that matters. The important thing is that we are all properly shocked into buying newspapers.

The services offered include diabetes education and screening, blood pressure tests, pregnancy testing, HIV and tuberculosis testing, adult immunizations and health education. The staff also assists in finding a medical home that provides ongoing health care services for anyone who lacks medical insurance and does not have a health care provider.

No appointment is needed. Some services are free, including HIV rapid testing with results in 20 minutes. Other services offered at other locations are on a sliding fee scale based on income. Licensed volunteer physicians from the Senior Friendship Centers provide basic medical care when the mobile medical unit is at the Salvation Army in Sarasota. A registered nurse is available at all sites.

The following is a schedule of dates and locations for the mobile unit:

SARASOTA

Thursdays, Oct. 7, 14, 21 and 28, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m.

Salvation Army
1400 10th St.

Mondays, Oct. 4 and 18, 9:30 a.m.-noon

Selby Goodwill Jobs Center

1781 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way

Mondays, Oct. 4 and 18, 1-3 p.m.

Newtown Estates Park

2800 Newtown Blvd.

Monday, Oct. 11, 9:30 a.m.-noon

Orange Avenue Housing Authority property

1912 N. Orange Ave.

Mondays, Oct. 11 and 25, 1-3 p.m.

Arizona Multi-Services Center

3900 N. Washington Blvd.

Monday, Oct. 25, 9:30 a.m.-noon

McCown Tower

1300 Blvd. of the Arts

LAUREL

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2-5 p.m.

U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food distribution program

Sandra Sims Terry Community Center

509 Collins Road

NOKOMIS

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 9:30 a.m.-noon

The Community Pharmacy of Sarasota County

225 Tamiami Trail S.

VENICE

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 9:30 a.m.-noon

Goodwill Center – The Rialto

650 S. Tamiami Trail

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 1-3 p.m.

Habitat for Humanity ReStore

1400 Ogden Road

ENGLEWOOD

Tuesdays, Oct. 12 and 26, 9:30 a.m.-noon

Englewood Goodwill Center

410 Indiana Ave.

Tuesdays, Oct. 12 and 26, 1-3 p.m.

Englewood Helping Hands

700 E. Dearborn St.

NORTH PORT

Friday, Oct. 1; 9:30 a.m.-noon

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) food distribution program

St. Nathaniel’s Episcopal Church

4200 S. Biscayne Drive

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 9:30 a.m.-noon

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 9:30 a.m.-3 p.m.

Walmart Supercenter

17000 Tamiami Trail

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1-3 p.m.

Grande Court Apartments at North Port

5203 Greenwood Ave.

For more information, contact the Sarasota County Call Center at 941-861-5000, or visit www.sarasotahealth.org to view the calendar or to submit a special event request. Anyone without computer access can visit a health kiosk at any of the eight Sarasota County libraries or at any Senior Friendship Center.

FIOCRUZ (www.fiocruz.br) is a world-renowned public health organization affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Health and is the Ministry’s leading supplier for therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostic tests dedicated to public health. FIOCRUZ has entered collaborations with some of the world’s leading biotechnology companies in fulfillment of its mission.

This is the second DPP(R) test developed by Chembio to receive regulatory approval in Brazil in the last three months. In June, the Company reported approval of its DPP(R) oral fluid HIV 1/2 screening test by ANVISA. This is however the first DPP(R) multiplex test employing Chembio’s patented Dual Path Platform to received regulatory approval. One of the unique features of DPP(R) is its enabling of multiple parameter tests to be developed. The confirmatory test uniquely detects five different strains of HIV in a single point-of-care device.

During 2008 Chembio signed four agreements with FIOCRUZ relating to products based on the Company’s DPP(R) technology, including this HIV confirmatory test. Previous to that, in 2004, Chembio and FIOCRUZ entered a successful collaboration pertaining to Chembio’s HIV 1/2 STAT-PAK(R). Under the DPP(R) HIV 1/2 Confirmatory rapid test agreement with FIOCRUZ, a technology transfer to FIOCRUZ for this product is contracted for, which is anticipated to occur in stages over a three-year period. During that period the agreement provides for minimum sales by Chembio to FIOCRUZ for this product and related components of approximately $4.7 million. Thereafter, it is anticipated that the technology transfer process will be completed. The agreement for the previously approved oral fluid HIV test, combined with this agreement pertaining to the HIV confirmatory test, represent combined potential aggregate sales of at least $13.5 million based on the minimum sales required under these agreements in order to complete the technology transfer.

Lawrence Siebert, Chembio’s Chief Executive Officer, said, “This product approval is an important milestone relating to our DPP(R) technology, as it very clearly demonstrates the capabilities of our platform, replacing time-consuming, laboratory-dependent tests with products that can provide critical information at the point of care.”

About Chembio Diagnostics Chembio Diagnostics, Inc. develops, manufactures, licenses and markets proprietary rapid diagnostic tests in the growing $7 billion point-of-care testing market. Chembio’s two FDA PMA-approved, CLIA-waived, rapid HIV tests are marketed in the U.S. by Alere North America, Inc. (formerly Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc.). Chembio markets its HIV STAT-PAK(R) line of rapid HIV tests internationally to government and donor-funded programs directly and through distributors. Chembio has developed a patented point-of-care test platform technology, the Dual Path Platform (DPP(R)) technology, which has significant advantages over lateral-flow technologies. This technology is providing Chembio with a significant pipeline of business opportunities for the development and manufacture of new products based on DPP(R). Headquartered in Medford, NY, with approximately 100 employees, Chembio is licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is certified for the global market under the International Standards Organization (ISO) directive 13.485. For more information, please visit: www.chembio.com.

Forward-Looking Statements Statements contained herein that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the Company and its management. Such statements are estimates only, as the Company has not completed the preparation of its financial statements for those periods, nor has its auditor completed a review or audit of those results. Actual revenue may differ materially from those anticipated in this press release. Such statements reflect management’s current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to Chembio’s ability to obtain additional financing, to obtain regulatory approvals in a timely manner and the demand for Chembio’s products. Chembio undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in Chembio’s expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact Chembio’s success are more fully disclosed in Chembio’s most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

“Through home-based counselling and testing, you are able to get children and parents who might not go to health facilities for these services,” said Samson Ndege, one of the authors of the study and HCT project coordinator with the USAID-supported Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), which cares for more than 100,000 HIV-positive adults and children in the region. “HCT provides an opportunity to… link children and parents to treatment.”

The study, published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, looked at the uptake of HIV testing and HIV prevalence among children given HCT and aged between 18 months and 13 years, whose mothers were either dead, HIV-infected or of unknown HIV status.

Ndege noted that it took some convincing to get parents to allow their children to be tested. “One reason many parents did not want their children tested was fear of disclosing their HIV status, but through counselling, many parents now know the children can access treatment and therefore there is an increase of those willing to have children tested,” he said.

Diagnosis and treatment of HIV-positive children remains very low in much of sub-Saharan Africa; the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that without treatment, about half of HIV-infected children will die before their second birthday.

Limitations

Kenya’s 2008 national HIV testing guidelines single out diagnosis of children as a benefit of HCT.

More on children
Help HIV-positive children in pain, urges HRW
Low breastfeeding rates threaten PMTCT efforts
Child deaths stubbornly high
When do we tell children they are HIV-positive?
Love, Positively Of the 2,289 children offered HCT in the Kenyan study, 57 percent participated and of these nearly 5 percent were found to be HIV-positive.

“In every place where we carried out the research… there are AMPATH clinics where the HIV-positive children and their parents are referred to for treatment,” Ndege said. “Community health workers are employed to make follow up visits and ensure that those enrolled in treatment do not default.”

Some limitations of the study included the fact that it was restricted to “high-risk” children, it did not test children younger than 18 months – who would have required more complex tests than the rapid one administered in the home – and the limited geographical and cultural scope of the study, which means the results cannot be generalized.

The authors concluded that while HCT did provide an opportunity to diagnose HIV among high-risk children, further investigation was needed to identify and overcome barriers to testing uptake.

LTFU accounted for an increasing proportion of overall programme attrition: from 9% at six months to 29% at 3 years on antiretroviral treatment.

The study was conducted by researchers from the International Epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS collaboration of South Africa (IeDEA-SA).

South Africa has the largest antiretroviral programme in the world. From 2004 when the public programme began until 2007 an estimated 370,000 people started treatment. Yet no data on programme outcomes exist at the national level. As in other resource-poor setting there is little evidence about trends over time – mortality, loss-to-follow-up and retention.

Recently revised WHO treatment guidelines as well as South African national guidelines raise the concern of how the anticipated expansion of services will be met while keeping large numbers of patients in care. The time trend reported by the IeDEA-SA researchers suggests that increasing loss to follow-up will come with further expansion.

The increased demands will require a strengthened health care system capable of dealing with chronic disease, the researchers note. In most resource-poor countries the system is set up to deal with acute care and episodic illnesses. Keeping patients in care is a measure of a programme’s success.

LTFU is not a new phenomenon. However, a better understanding of LTFU at the national as well as at the programme level is key to successfully re-directing health systems toward long-term chronic care management, they add.

The IeDEA researchers reported a declining trend in mortality rates over time. This may be a true decline, but the possibility of an association between programme expansion and an increasing inability to determine mortality correctly is likely, they note. Increasing numbers of LTFU may lead to an underestimate of mortality.

The researchers stress the urgent need for linkage to death registries and where they do not exist, their establishment in low- and middle-income countries.

However, they note it is the size and pace of scale-up in South Africa that is responsible for high rate of loss to follow-up (LTFU).

Enrolment has increased 12-fold over a five year period with a cumulative total of 44,000; 63% of whom enrolled in the last two years. The twelve month LTFU rate increased annually from 1% in 2002/2003 to 13% in 2006.

The longer the time on antiretroviral treatment, the greater the proportion of the overall programme loss was due to LTFU: from 9% at six months to 29% at 36 months on antiretroviral treatment.

Such rapid increases in numbers placed additional burdens on an already overburdened system.

Monitoring and retention of patients in care was severely handicapped; capturing and accurately reporting data was problematic. Increasing numbers of LTFU could be because of death, lost to care, administrative error or inadequate patient monitoring systems, the researchers note.

The distinction between those LTFU due to administrative error and those truly lost to care needs to be made. Those truly lost to care, the authors note, are more likely to be non-adherent and at higher risk of death. A further consequence is the development of drug resistance, which then hinders programme success.

The researchers conclude that there is a need for further research at both the programme and national levels to understand LTFU adding that “Innovative, effective strategies are needed to follow and retain patients in large HIV treatment programmes while rapidly expanding access to antiretroviral services (in low- and middle-income countries.”

At the programme level, in spite of good early outcomes, adherence levels are also declining along with an increase in poorer treatment outcomes.

In an observational cohort study, of two well-established antiretroviral programmes in South Africa, one in the community and the other in the workplace, Mison Dahab and colleagues found that poor treatment outcomes (viral load above 400 copies/ml or having stopped treatment within the first six months) were more common in the well-resourced workplace programme (40% compared to 17%).

The study was designed to identify baseline factors predictive of poor treatment outcomes. Knowledge of these factors would help providers address these issues before starting patients on antiretroviral treatment, so improving adherence and retention in care and treatment outcomes. Yet little evidence exists about which baseline factors might be predictive of poor outcomes.

The researchers found that baseline predictive factors were unique to each programme. While excessive drinking and having seen a traditional healer was associated with poorer outcomes in the community, being male and knowing someone on antiretroviral treatment showed better outcomes. Poorer outcomes in the workplace were associated with being uncertain about the benefits of ART and a traditional healer’s ability to treat HIV (aOR 7.53, 95% CI: 2.02-27.98; aOR 4.40, 95% CI: 1.41-13.75, respectively).

Barriers to remaining on treatment and in care were primarily structural in the community setting. Testing and getting into care were more likely to be self-motivated compared to the workplace setting where provider-initiated testing and counselling (PITC) was the entry point. This would suggest, according to the researchers, that where PITC is available there is a need for additional adherence support.

Additionally in the workplace a longer time between diagnosis and starting antiretroviral treatment was associated with better outcomes (2-12 weeks compared to under two weeks (aOR 0.13, 95% CI:0.03-0.56)). This highlights, they note, the challenges of providing adequate antiretroviral counselling support before starting treatment when the need to start ART is immediate.

Read More

She inhales, imagining filth somewhere outside her apartment’s walls. The scent must have crept under the crack in the door, she thinks, or through the air vent overnight.

Scratching her skin, she mumbles to herself about the neighborhood, this building, the dodgy characters she often sees skulking in the hallways or lazily smoking outside on the front steps.

Whatever they track in, she won’t have it near her now. She works hard to stay clean, takes two showers a day, sometimes three. She straightens and sponges and scrubs her small apartment on Market Street every morning until it shines.

“That riffraff, I don’t allow it around me. I don’t allow it in my house,” she says. “There gonna be some demons out there. I say, ‘Go on. I’m not like that today.’”

Where is the mop? The Clorox? The 38-year-old throws her diminutive frame into the wooden handle, shoving the mop along the vinyl floor. Figurines of children and angels, lining the window ledges, rattle from her effort.

And when she is done, when the bite of bleach fills the air and the bed is made, she plods to the bathroom mirror. She runs her hands over a shaved scalp and clips on the gold-colored thrift-store earrings.

Then, the final touch. She reaches for the teeth kept wrapped in paper towels on the sink and wiggles them into place over her gums, hiding the spaces where her own teeth rotted away years ago. She smiles. Her daily baptism is complete.

You see, Aquarnetta must stay clean on the outside, things must stay just so, because she’s got to believe she’s purged through to the inside, that everything she burned to the ground isn’t gone. She’ll stay away from those drugs, those men, and she won’t go back to jail.

She knows a little boy is waiting, holding his breath and praying she won’t become her old self again.

But she won’t slip this time. Please believe her. She’s begging. She’s demanding it. She’s changed.

* * *

Classes will start at the community college soon, and Carlous Drake, a sweet-mannered social worker type and a teacher in the Chattanooga State precollege assistance office, is trying to gauge where the students’ heads are.

The Project AHEAD program meets every day in anticipation of the college semester and is a constellation of the unschooled, those referred by the Chattanooga Housing Authority, the food stamp office and the state Department of Human Services.

Softly, sympathetically, he asks, “Who is afraid?”

Gordon, a laid-off landscaper who hasn’t seen the inside of a classroom since 1966, admits he’s scared. And Allen, a bright but debilitatingly shy man who hides behind a duffle bag he keeps on the table during class, says he’s worried, too.

“Who’s not afraid?” Drake asks. Aquarnetta, sitting on the front row, looks up. Her hand shoots toward the ceiling.

“I am kind of nervous about going to school, but I am a persistent person,” she says. “I am going to get my schoolwork done if I have to stay up all night because if it’s something I want, I am going to strive for it. I don’t like ‘no, no’ for no answer.”

Aquarnetta hasn’t always been so certain of herself. Hannah Brewer can tell you about the old Aquarnetta, about the homeless woman she met a little more than two years ago who didn’t have $1.50 for bus fare and, according to tests, wasn’t any smarter than a sixth-grader.

She came to Brewer, a teacher at the GED program in the St. Andrews Center, dangling on the end of a last chance. She had 17 bouts of rehab behind her and needed to show progress on an education if the state was going to give her food stamps.

“I can’t do this,” Aquarnetta told Brewer at their first meeting.

Most people who come through Brewer’s office aren’t ready to flip over yet. Or they come for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, but the grammar, the math, something breaks them, and they disappear.

Aquarnetta came back. Every day, she came back. She came from wherever she found a place to sleep. She rode the city bus and walked in rain, heat and cold. When she failed three out of five subjects on her first practice test after studying for more than a year, she still came back.

She got there early, made coffee for the teachers. She stayed late, picked up scattered papers and pencils.

“Walk by faith, not by sight,” Brewer told her.

In a year, she walked. She would pass her final GED test, and Brewer watched Aquarnetta bawl on the stage after accepting her diploma.

“Life is brutiful,” Aquarnetta says. “I got me a fruture.”

At the graduation, she talks about her plans to attend Chattanooga State Community College and study social work. She watches proud children crowd around their graduating parents.

Her own children aren’t there.

* * *

When Frank Newsom sees Aquarnetta through the glass, he looks twice. Then he recognizes her. She is nearly 60 pounds heavier, with apples for cheeks and full around the hips. And her teeth … wait … she has teeth.

His long and wrinkled face beams as he hobbles toward the door to let her in to the health clinic where he’s working as a security officer.

“How’s my baby doing?” he asks.

She fumbles with cards in her pocketbook.

“Look! I got me a Chattanooga State ID,” she says. She flashes a fuzzy mug shot on a laminated card.

“I’m fixing to go to college,” she says.

“I wish you could have been at my [GED] graduation. The teacher said I had a willpower in me. I didn’t complain. I was there every day. They gave me an award for student of the year, Frank. Let me tell you, it made me so proud.”

Somehow, Frank always knew he would see Aquarnetta one day, just like this, patched up and new.

Working as a Chattanooga homicide detective for nearly 40 years, Frank met Aquarnetta several years ago when she was a streetwalker on the east side of the city, a place where the clean sidewalks of downtown turned to cracked pavement and window treatments became cold metal bars.

Among the small-time thieves, addicts and prostitutes who moved on and off Dodson Avenue, she became one of the few he liked. When a person got shot or stabbed to death and he couldn’t find a lead, he went to her for help with the case. And he watched after her, too, bringing her plates of food nearly every day.

He’ll never forget the way she looked back then, ashy and skeletal, her breasts hanging like pancakes, her unwashed skin stained jet black by the sun.

“She looked like a ghost,” he said.

And in many ways she was an apparition, living in the body, but worn, dead.

By that time, she had smoked crack cocaine for most of 15 years. She called it her sweet little crack, and nothing kept her from running after it, hit after hit, day after day.

She had stolen for it, lied for it, given her body over to strange men in cars and back alleys over and over again. She bled for it, once trapped in a car with a man who ripped into her skin with a box cutter and dumped her out on the street to die. The scars still crisscross her back and legs.

She went to jail dozens of times for shoplifting, possession, prostitution or drinking too much. She went to prison for sneaking drugs into a jail cell.

She caught HIV from God knows who, and spread it for nearly a decade, without remorse, to the men who would throw her $20 or $30 for a 15-minute go-round.

But of all that, she says, nothing was worse than what she did to her babies.

* * *

At 18, she didn’t know how badly off she was. She got her own welfare check and moved out of her mother’s place and into a three-bedroom apartment in the projects with her 2-year-old Kiosha and her 1-year-old Baszil.

One night, after she put the babies down to sleep, she started itching, wanting a high. Her mother had bought the children a Nintendo for them to play when they got older. She grabbed it and called a cab to take her to the nearest pawnshop.

She would be back before the babies woke up, she told herself.

At the pawnshop, they paid her $25 for the Nintendo, not enough for the crack she wanted. So she walked to Main Street, stared hollow-eyed and desperate at the cars that passed by.

One crept slowly along the curb, the door opening. She slipped into the car, a tightness, a fear rising in her chest as he pawed her.

He would be the first of three men she would have sex with that night for money or drugs before police spotted and arrested her.

It wasn’t until late the next day, locked up at Silverdale Detention Center, that she remembered she had left her sleeping babies. A maintenance man at the housing project had walked past the apartment and heard them screaming. He found them sitting in their dirty diapers, alone and hungry.

Her mother hand-delivered the custody papers to the jail, and Aquarnetta signed without a fight.

“The drugs have you to where you don’t care. You will sell your soul,” she says. “You will do almost anything, and I did.”

A year later, she smoked so much crack she hemorrhaged, losing an unborn baby boy.

Then there was Isaiah, born years later, feeble and cocaine-addicted. When Isaiah was taken by Child Protective Services, his father, Willie Craighead, was the one who cried and fought the court for custody. After sharing joint custody with Aquarnetta’s aunt, he was given full custody nearly six years ago.

A former drug addict himself, Willie met Aquarnetta when they were both living in downtown homeless shelters finishing rehab programs through the Chattanooga Community Kitchen. She had just learned she was HIV positive and wanted to get clean of drugs.

The rehab program helped them get an apartment together after graduation. He got a good-paying job driving moving trucks. But she wouldn’t stay away from the crack. He begged her not to smoke while she was pregnant with their son.

She didn’t listen.

* * *

Willie has a hard time forgiving Aquarnetta, and so does his family. They heard she earned her GED and is going to college. They heard about her nice apartment where she lives with her boyfriend, another former crack addict gone clean, who pays the bills with money from his job at a chicken house. They hope she’s changed, but they doubt it.

They wonder if all this good she’s doing for herself now will mean any kind of good for Isaiah.

“She has never spent any time with that child,” said Margaret McCorkle, Isaiah’s aunt. “She don’t know him. Those drugs, she chose those drugs.”

This tugs at Aquarnetta, the doubt about whether her turnaround can stick. She wants to make amends and be given this last chance to mother someone. Her two oldest children are grown now. Kiosha is 21 and has three children of her own and a baby on the way. Both, like their mother, are in and out of court. Kiosha’s been in trouble with the police for vandalism three times this year and Baszil for dealing marijuana and cocaine.

Isaiah’s different.

* * *

It’s the last week before real college classes start, and in the precollege class the students are trying to brush up on their public speaking skills.

“Why do you want to be a social worker?” the teacher asks Aquarnetta.

Class members turn their heads to look. Aquarnetta’s voice lowers, quivers.

I want to go into human services where I can put children back in their homes.

I think children should be with their parents.

My son, he’s 10 and he’s never been in my custody. He’s still with his daddy.

But I feel like I’m ready. I’m not ready financially, but I can love him and he can come to my house and spend the night and we can go some places. I want him to get to know me.

I want it right now, but I have done told them so many times, “I’m through with this, and I am through with that.” They don’t believe me.

* * *

The young boy’s legs pump underneath him as he runs after the bus. It pulls to a stop and he sees his father, 55-year-old Willie Craighead, balancing on a walker as he descends the bus steps. Isaiah rushes toward him, slings slender arms around his waist and lets the man lean against him as they walk toward the door of their brick duplex.

Inside, Isaiah does what he’s done most days since his father’s kidney failure two years ago. The boy gathers his action figures and toy cars scattered in the living room. He carries trash to the Dumpster, throws clothes in the washer and puts away the dishes.

Traveling back and forth from dialysis three days a week, Willie too often is cloudy, tired, unable to care for Isaiah anymore. At night, Isaiah stays with his aunt, who lives just two houses over in their Alton Park neighborhood. She wakes him for school, checks his report cards and helps him when he gets stuck on his homework.

Isaiah gets all A’s at school and last year skipped a grade to become one of the youngest sixth-graders at Orchard Knob Middle School. Willie can’t believe it. He collects the proof in a binder he calls Isaiah’s Book of Accomplishments.

Pages show years of perfect attendance, star roll, honor roll, math and reading victories, nods to best behavior.

Willie cries when he looks at it, thinking back to how his baby bloomed on the rocky path of his and Aquarnetta’s failures. Sometimes, when Isaiah sits beside him on the couch, he folds himself over his son and cries.

“My baby will be 11 years old soon,” he says. “Who is going to take care of him if something happens?”

* * *

Aquarnetta pushes through the students bottlenecking in the hallway, flooding in and out of classrooms. She watches the numbers on the doors climb. Nervously, she clutches a textbook to her chest.

“128,” she reads aloud. “129.”

Today’s the day. Her first day at college. She’s wearing one of her best dresses, blue with ruffles, and carrying a new purple bookbag. That morning, she left the price tag hanging on the outside for show.

“Where is 130A?” she asks someone.

“It’s right here,” a girl standing near the door says. “You’re looking for the study skills class. Right?”

“Yeah,” she says.

She walks through the door and finds a seat in the front row.

* * *

Isaiah knows his father is fading. The dialysis, the advancing diabetes, the breathing with a respirator. So he holds onto his daddy and prays for his momma. He tries to forget the times when he wanted his momma and she wasn’t there.

Instead, he runs over the few precious words she’s ever said to him, the one Sunday months ago when she took him to church, the one time last year when she was able to take him to the Tennessee Aquarium and they saw the penguins and laughed.

If she calls, they can talk about school, his grades, her college classes. And while he waits, he said he’ll ask God to help her make something of herself this time and get a good job and come around more.

“She is my momma and I love her,” he says.

“Sometimes she does stuff wrong, but I still accept her apology ’cause, whether she’s my momma or not, I still have to love her for who she is.”

Source: times free press

‘No sexual advance’
Mr Singh, who invited the media to his premises yesterday, denied that he had made sexual advances to the woman. He said he did not consider asking her to rub his leg as inappropriate, but added that perhaps he should not have asked her as it created a problem with his wife. When asked why he did not ask his wife to rub his leg, the man said his wife was not at home and he could not contact his therapist. “Now look at me wife, she look better than most 16-year-old girls, why would I want to be making any advances?”
His wife was more concerned that the young woman did not tell her about the incident. “Why she took my husband’s money and did not tell me anything and skinning and grinning with me?” The man said when the massage was administered his 10-year-old son was in the house.
Responding to claims that he called the young woman into a room to view pornographic videos with him, he denied it occurred. When asked by one of the officials present if he watches pornography in the home, he man initially said it “is my personal business.” After his wife said there are no such DVDs in their home, he claimed he would not watch such videos in the house where he has three young children.
Stain
The man said that the publication of the story has caused immeasurable damage to his business although neither he nor his business was identified. “About thirty people call me yesterday and say boy this sound like you,” he said.
According to his wife, they employed the young woman after she was recommended by an aunt. The woman said the young woman’s cousin was initially hired but was not performing satisfactorily. After she complained, Mrs Singh said, the aunt suggested that she fire her and hire the young woman. Mrs Singh said she agreed to pay the maid $20,000 a month and three weeks after she started working, the maid approached her and requested that she give her mother her salary because her sister was ill and in hospital. “So I pay her for the month before the month was up,” the woman said before producing a charge sheet of all the money she had given to the woman. In all, the woman said the tally was $86,100, while the maid had only earned $65,000—three months and one week’s salary—and as a result the couple said she owes them $21,000.
They denied that their maid was imprisoned, saying that from time to time they would send her to run errands, which involved them giving her large sums of money. “Why didn’t she run away then? Why she come back?” he questioned. His wife said it was only last Friday that she visited their business place in a taxi to see her mother.
The wife said the maid’s mother indicated that her son was ill and she had to go home, but claimed the young woman offered to stay on until she found a replacement. The young woman had told officials that when she indicated she wanted to leave her employers informed her that she had to remain until they could replace her.
The Singhs did not deny that they took away the woman’s cellular phone, as according to the wife, “I don’t want her talking and laughing when she should be doing my work.” The husband said they gave the woman a phone as they wanted to monitor who she called or who called her and if they had “attempted to get a printout from her phone it would have been an invasion of privacy.” They admitted too that they had locked away their land-line, stating that they have had bad experiences in the past.
Meanwhile, Mrs Singh said the woman was entitled to two days and a night off each month and while she at first denied that the young woman worked from Sunday to Sunday, she admitted that the woman helped out on Sundays “because we still have to eat.” According to her, the maid’s day starts from about 06:30 hrs and ends at 17:00 hrs. The maid, Mrs Singh also said, would watch Indian soap operas with her every night from seven o’clock until half-past ten.
The couple said that they only took the maid once to a property they have in Bel Air for her to clean same. They added that they do not make National Insurance Scheme (NIS) payments for their maids because “they [the maids] can’t afford it.”
HIV Test
The couple also indicated that all prospective maids have to do an HIV test before they are employed and if they test positive, they would not be hired. “Madam, that is my home and they have to help prepare my meals and if they cut their finger or something, I wouldn’t want to get HIV from some stupidness like that. I have my children. I can’t get people like that working for me,” Mr Singh said, when told that it was discriminatory not to hire persons because of their HIV status. “I tell them about the phone and the HIV test before they are hired. They don’t have to take the job if they don’t want,” Mrs Singh added.
“I will never hire another [derogatory name for people of Amerindian heritage] again,” the angry businesswoman said and when told that she should not refer to persons in such racist terms, she said she was called a [derogatory term] by someone in her store and she took no offence. “Amerindians are exploiting business people. Them alone have all the rights?” she asked, while charging that the woman was making claims because she wanted to extract money from the couple. “They are only staining people’s name,” Mr Singh said, adding that persons like their maid was deterring business people from hiring certain people [he said he would not name the race]. “They [the certain kind of people] have too much of protection and they don’t know what they are doing. They are full of themselves,” he said.
Mrs Singh denied calling the woman names but in front of the officials she referred to the woman as a “sucker” while her husband called her “an idiot.”
The couple has also now accused the woman of stealing two video games and a pair of gold earrings.

Source: stabroeknews.com

Hugh McFall, 48, beat his daughter Francesca, 18, to death before hanging himself, the inquest heard
McFall left a note next to the bodies of his wife Susan and daughter Francesca reading: ‘I love you more than anything I have ever loved. I couldn’t let you suffer. Daddy XX’.
But the inquest heard that the outwardly respectable company boss may have led a sordid secret life after records showed his computer had been used to access HIV testing websites, escort agencies and torture sites.

Beaten to death: McFall’s wife Susan, 58, pictured here with her daughter Francesca, was also killed
A news article relating to Christopher Foster, a millionaire businessman who murdered his family and set his house on fire after falling into financial ruin had also been researched.
The killer had lived just a few miles from the McFall home.
The inquest heard that McFall, 48, ran a business called Growing Places in Oswestry, Shropshire, and had supplied nearby family-run superstore Stans with flowers and plants for more than 15 years.
The contract accounted for 90-95 per cent of his income.
He and his family led an enviable lifestyle, regularly taking holidays to destinations such as Monte Carlo and going skiing.
Miss McFall, 18, had attended the £12,000-a-year private Oswestry School and was a former head girl there.
Her father drove a £30,000 Land Rover and was a member of the Shropshire Sailing Club.
He became such a trusted supplier at Stans that, as the family-run store expanded, its bosses allowed him to deliver goods without counting the orders. But in January 2010, the store conducted a review of its sales and the performance of each of its departments.
Justin Smart, general manager of the store, told the inquest he believed the company had overpaid McFall ‘well over half a million pounds over seven years’.
They summoned him to a meeting on February 4 this year, the day before his death, and asked him where the money had gone. He denied any wrongdoing and offered to supply invoices.
But as he couldn’t account for the missing money, they suspended him as a supplier with immediate effect and told him they would be consulting the police.
His parting words to the store owners were: ‘That’s me finished.’

Family home: The house in Oswestry where McFall killed his family
Andrew Faulks, one of the owner’s of Stans, said: ‘We wanted to confront Hugh about the losses.
‘I was very upset. We had a good relationship with Hugh and part of me was hoping he’d come out with something to say we were wrong. We just didn’t want to believe what was happening.’
Coroner John Ellery added: ‘He would have left that meeting knowing that his almost sole customer had stopped dealing with him immediately and that there may have been a criminal investigation with the police.’
After the meeting ended, McFall went back home.
That night, he murdered his 58-year-old bank worker wife with one blow while she lay in bed. He then clubbed his daughter to death with at least five blows over the head, also striking two to the arm as she reached up to defend herself.
He is then thought to have dragged her, possibly while she was still alive, on to the bed beside his wife, before going to his industrial lock-up and hanging himself from the roof.
They were both found in the blood-stained bed with men’s ties around their neck after McFall phoned police telling them: ‘I’ve done something awful.’
The couple had been married for 20 years, though Mrs McFall had children from a previous marriage. Outside the house, he left a note for his brother-in-law saying: ‘Neil – don’t go inside.’
The inquest at Shrewsbury Magistrates Court heard that records taken from home computers show a user repeatedly searching for HIV testing at clinics, torture pictures and browsing escort websites.
The user also looked up how to commit euthanasia and accessed a website about the death of Christopher Foster.
Foster, 50, murdered his wife Jillian, 49, and daughter Kirstie, 15, in August 2008, a year-and-a-half before McFall’s killing spree.
The inquest continues.

Source: dailymail

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The TGA has issued a safety alert about the CORE HIV Rapid Test that is being purchased online and from retail outlets in Australia. The agency says the testing kit is unproven, has never been registered in Australia and is not legal.

Source: 6minutes

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This is now being revealed in some rather shocking video footage released by Brent Leung, creator of the House of Numbers documentary (www.HouseOfNumbers.com) which tears apart the inconsistencies and dogmatic non-science found in the conventional HIV / AIDS industry.

Watch the footage yourself right now at: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA…

There, you’ll see world-renowned scientists discussing the so-called “western blot,” a highly subjective test that is now being used around the world to falsely diagnose people with HIV and, subsequently, AIDS. This western blot, as you’ll learn below, is a spectacularly laughable test that seems to have been designed to make “positive” criteria as loose as possible in order to label perfectly healthy people as having AIDS.

“I don’t think the western blot is a useful diagnostic test. I don’t think it’s worth doing,” argues Dr Robin Weiss in the video clip.

Val Turner, an MD from Australia, adds, “It’s ludicrous that you can be [HIV] positive in one country and not positive in another.”

Neville Hodgkinson, the Medical and Science Correspondent for The Sunday Times (London) adds, “Some people argue that we have a confirmatory test in some western countries, and that repeated testing can lead you to a safer diagnosis. But if the very basis of the test is faulty, then nothing works in fact. …Because of the different criteria that apply in different countries, you can test HIV positive in one country and be given an AIDS diagnosis as a result of that, whereas in another country you won’t test HIV positive and you won’t be given an AIDS diagnosis.”

A full-blown AIDS patient will almost always show nine different “bands” on an HIV test. But in the 1980’s, only one band was required — P24 — to diagnose someone as HIV positive (and subsequently having AIDS). The problem is that perfectly healthy people can also test positive for P24, even if they aren’t HIV positive.

“In the early days, people developed criteria that were too much like a screening test. So if you had just P24 [band], they might have called it a positive,” said Robert Redfield MD, Director, Clinical Care and Research, Institute of Human Virology.

Doctor Val Turner adds, “Many people were diagnosed using these criteria, and then it was realized that forty percent of people who are completely healthy have one or more western blot bands, most commonly a P24 band.”

A few years later, the FDA changed its diagnosis criteria for HIV, upping the requirement beyond a single P24 band. But people who had already been diagnosed as having AIDS were never re-tested!

Dr Val Turner explains, “We don’t know how many thousand people were testing using that western blot criteria before 1987, but … shouldn’t they all have been tested when the criteria changed in 1987 in case they were no longer positive? So there are probably people out there who would not be positive under the criteria which developed subsequently. Using the FDA criteria which existed before 1993, only 80 percent of AIDS patients had a positive HIV test, which means 20 percent were not positive.”

HIV tests depend on personal opinion, not rigorous science

Even today, HIV tests are conducted in a wishy-washy, non-scientific manner where the results depend largely on the opinion of the lab technician reading the test results! (It’s absurd, of course, but this is what’s happening right now.)

In House of Numbers, Brent Leung visited Claudia Kücherer, MD, a Molecular Biologist at the Robert Kock Institute in Berlin. There, he recorded this conversation:

Brent: “When you’re looking at this western blot, how do you determine what is a positive [result]?”

Claudia: “You need a certain number of bands being present. It depends a little bit on the producer of the test.”

Brent: “It depends on the manufacturer?”

Claudia: “Yes”

Brent: “Is there a different criteria for what might be a positive?”

Claudia: “Yeah, there are different criteria from the manufacturer.”

Manufacturers of the HIV test, in other words, differ in how they define a “positive.” You might be “HIV positive” on one test, but negative on another. And the decision on which manufacturer’s test to use is based on the opinion of the clinic, hospital or doctor ordering the tests.

Astonishingly, this House of Numbers footage also includes a scene featuring two different HIV test lab technicians working in the same lab who disagree on the criteria for a positive HIV test result. While one lab workers says two bands are needed for a positive diagnosis, another worker says three are required. And they work in the same lab!

Watch this footage yourself right here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E9FEA…

Western blot HIV test called into question

But some scientists feel the western blot is not just a good test, but a great one! Robert C Gallo MD, Director of the Institute of Human Virology, says “This has a margin of error if done properly that’s extremely low. In other words, it’s one of medicine’s better tests.”

One of medicine’s better tests? Really? And yet it can be interpreted in different ways by different lab technicians, different definitions in different countries, different manufacturers and different medical opinions?

The HIV tests, it turns out, is more a matter of opinion than scientific fact. And if you or someone you know has tested positive for HIV, maybe they should get a second opinion.

Why not make the test more accurate?

So why doesn’t the industry tighten up its guidelines and require five, six or even all nine bands to show up before diagnosing someone as HIV positive? No one seems to know.

I do, though. Isn’t it obvious? The AIDS industry is much like the cancer industry in that it’s focused on diagnosing as many patients as possible whether or not they actually have the disease. More patients equals more profits and a bigger “scare story” to feed the media propaganda machines.

We already know that the AIDS industry fabricated evidence to try to exaggerate the scope of the AIDS scare (http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=D35F0…). So it’s not surprising they would be promoting a “loose” test that potentially has already ensnared potentially tens of thousands of innocent people into a false AIDS diagnosis.

Once a person is diagnosed with AIDS, you see, they become a profit generating machine for Big Pharma. AIDS pharmaceuticals are extremely expensive, and because they are protected under an FDA-enforced monopoly, they can be sold at practically any asking price.

Even better, once innocent “healthy” people start taking AIDS drugs, they begin to show AIDS symptoms such as compromised immune systems. These side effects are caused by the drugs, of course, not by the disease, but in the minds of doctors and patients, the emergence of these scary symptoms proves that “they really had AIDS.”

It’s all just loopy, circular logic with a single purpose: To earn more money for Big Pharma at the expense of human suffering.

Now, I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a genuine person with immune deficiency. Thanks mostly to our toxic environment, there are certainly people who suffer chronic immune system malfunctions. But it is in the AIDS industry’s interests to convince even healthy people that they are ill and need pharmaceutical intervention to survive. And, by sheer coincidence (not!), today’s HIV tests are specifically designed in a way that produces a disturbingly high number of false positives.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/029689_western_blot_HIV_test.html

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“A wide range of HIV-related events can be of traumatic intensity for some individuals”, comment the researchers.

Life-threatening illness is recognised as a possible stressor that can lead to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a standard text book for the diagnosis of mental disorders (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition Text Revision) this stress is defined as “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury or threat to the physical integrity of self and others”, with the individual’s emotional response involving “fear, helplessness, or horror.”

Investigators wished to see if a broad-range of HIV-related events were associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. They hypothesised that experiencing one or more events would be linked with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and that perceived threat and emotional distress would be associated with such symptoms. They also wished to see if shame-related emotions were associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Their study sample included 100 HIV-positive gay men. These individuals were self-selecting, collecting their study questionnaire from an HIV service provider or downloaded it from the internet.

The patients had a mean age of 43 years, the mean number of years since diagnosis with HIV was eight, most (95%) were white, 68% had received a college education, 47% were employed, and 56% defined themselves as being single.

Overall, 33%of the sample met the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder.

Over half the sample (55%) reported that their HIV diagnosis was traumatic, 40% said that the experience of HIV-related symptoms caused trauma, and 30% said that they were traumatised by witnessing a death related to HIV. Other traumatic events included starting HIV treatment (19%), experiencing treatment side-effects (29%) and self-disclosing HIV status (15%).

Experiencing HIV-related symptoms was associated with feelings of physical threat, leading to the development of stress disorder.

For all the other measures emotional distress – fear, helplessness, or horror – was associated with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

The only socio-demographic characteristic associated with an increased risk of reporting symptoms of post-traumatic stress was under- or unemployment (p < 0.05).

Physical symptoms (p < 0.01) and witnessing an HIV-related death (p < 0.05) were all significantly associated with symptoms of traumatic stress. The investigators believe that such experiences may immediately recall the “immediate threat posed by HIV.”

The investigators were surprised to find that starting HIV treatment (p < 0.01) was strongly associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Few people (27%) perceived treatment as being physically threatening. The investigators speculated that there may be “catastrophic expectations about the limitations [treatment] may impose on social or occupational functioning, thus leading to traumatic fear, or the perceived failure of…lifestyle remedies leading to traumatic helplessness.”

The inclusion of shame-related emotions in the investigators’ analysis only modestly increased the proportion of patients who could be said to have experienced a traumatic event.

Individuals living with HIV can experience long periods of good health and stability, note the investigators. However, they suggest that receiving bad test results or witnessing HIV-related illness and death could cause “intense fear, helplessness or horror” that can predict the development of symptoms of post-tr aumatic stress. They recommend that HIV doctors should be watchful for symptoms such as “reexperiencing the event, behavioural avoidance or emotional numbing.”

Limitations of the study include its cross-sectional design. The investigators also acknowledge that they were unable to control for potentially confounding factors such as social support, non-HIV-related stressors, stigma, stressful life events, and past mental health problems.

Nevertheless, the investigators believe that their study adds to the literature that associates HIV with posttraumatic stress and that this is “primarily associated with fear, helplessness, or horror as opposed to shame, humiliation, or guilt.”

Source: http://www.aidsmap.com/page/1506783/

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From 2008 to 2009, the hospital conducted 25,000 rapid and standard HIV tests, and it is on track to do 18,000 this year. “The more people who know their status, the more people we get into care. We decrease the community viral load and decrease the number of infections,” said Ralph Belloise, director of HIV services at St. Barnabas.

The Bronx is especially affected by HIV/AIDS, say New York City health department officials. The borough is home to nearly a quarter of the city’s HIV infections and a third of its annual AIDS deaths. Some 106,000 city residents were living with HIV/AIDS in 2008. This number has grown steadily for the past 10 years, officials note. One in five infected residents are unaware of their status.

The health department in 2008 launched “The Bronx Knows,” a borough-wide effort to boost voluntary HIV testing. Roughly 75 community organizations, including hospitals, had administered more than 375,000 HIV tests as of June. Of these, 1,275 tests were positive, according to the health department.

Testing rates are rising at other city hospitals and agencies, too. Health and Hospitals Corp., which operates city-owned hospitals, tested almost 190,000 people last year, said Terry Hamilton, director of HIV services, up from 50,000 tests in 2004. Almost 90 percent of the tests it performs this year will provide rapid results.

Source: http://www.thebody.com/content/art58297.html

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Foursquare and MTV think you should.

The addictive mobile app has teamed up with the home of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom to encourage people to find out if they’re one of the one in five Americans with an STD.

And then they want you to tell the world.

After you drop by the doc’s, you can download a “GYT” — that’s Get Yourself Tested — badge from the geo-caching game.

Because there’s no way to celebrate becoming the mayor like yelling, “I got tested for crabs today!”

I give MTV and Foursquare credit for the project. It’s an important message, and if you’ve watched an episode of Jersey Shore lately, you might be wondering if syphilis has gotten to their brains.

But saying you “got tested” usually means you thought you “needed” to be tested. Which means you’re announcing to the world of Foursquare (including your granny) that you did something where you maybe sort of possibly could have caught a raging case of something.

Have heart — so has most every other person on the planet. Even people who are totally monogamous can have an STD.

And sometimes the anonymity is a bit … over the top? I was required by NY State law to have an HIV test (negative yo!) when I was pregnant. My OB/GYN offered me the chance to go for an anonymous test … even though, um, he would get the results?

Letting your doctor in on your STD fears is one thing, though. Letting the whole world know is a whole uncomfortable talk with Granny about kids these days.

Unless you’re just in it for the free trip to New York City they’re giving away. Ah, gotcha there, didn’t we?

Would you let people know you just got tested?

Source: The Stir

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A pastor has angered Christians in South Africa by preaching a sermon entitled “Jesus was HIV-positive” in an attempt to break what he regards as a conspiracy of silence by the South African church.

Xola Skosana said that HIV is stigmatised as evil and a sin in the country that has the world’s biggest caseload.

Skosana, 43, underwent a HIV test in front of his congregation last Sunday at the non-denominational Way of Life church in Khayelitsha , Cape Town. The test was also taken by 100 young people from the impoverished township.

The pastor said he chose the title for his three-part sermon to draw attention to “a very serious issue”.

“In many parts of the Bible, God put himself in the position of the destitute, the sick, the marginalised,” he said. “When we attend to those who are sick, we are attending to him. When we ignore people who are sick, we are ignoring him.”

Skosana cited a passage in the Bible where Jesus says: “I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” But he has had a hostile reaction in some quarters.

“The scathing attacks I’ve received from Christians are unbelievable,” he said. “They’re saying you can’t reconcile Jesus and Aids. They assume it means Jesus was promiscuous and had a louche lifestyle with many sexual partners.”

Skosana lost two sisters to Aids. One died last month at the age of 44. The other died in 2003 in her early 20s.

He condemned the national church for failing to tackle the issue when nearly 1,000 people are dying from Aids-related causes every day. The South African government had been accused of Aids “denialism” but has more recently been praised for its prevention and treatment programmes.

“It baffles me why in the church this is the most untalked-about subject,” Skosana said. “If I went to church and never heard the pastor talk about this, I would assume I must go home and die in silence. The message is that it’s an unpardonable sin and we must just forget about HIV/Aids.

“My responsibility as a pastor is to open a Bible and paint a picture of a God who cares for people and wants the best for them, not who judges them and is ashamed of them.”

He called on other churches to be more open about the subject. “I hope this will change the paradigm, especially in the Pentecostal background. I come from the Pentecostal background and I know this discussion is totally alien there.”

Skosana will not disclose the result of his public HIV test in case it puts pressure on the churchgoers who followed his example. They had heard him explain the virus, possible treatments and the importance of knowing their status and were given professional counselling.

Skosana’s stance was praised by South Africa’s National Aids Council. Mark Heywood, its deputy chairperson, said: “I applaud his actions. It’s very important that church leaders set an example, destigmatising HIV and encouraging testing so people know their status.

“There are many churches that have done a lot to combat HIV. The problem is that the church as a whole has not been vocal enough. It’s often been left to individual church leaders and organisations. We would like to hear a clearer message.”

The South African Council of Churches was unavailable for comment.

Source: Guardian

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