What I Learned...

For the most part we covered what I thought we would in this class. I don't think I was expecting to see my classmates put condoms on "woody," but that was entertaining nonetheless. I think the most useful information I learned was about how severe the AIDS epidemic really was. I'll admit I was a little ignorant when it came to AIDS, especially in Africa. But not anymore... I don't think there was anything the was 'the least' useful. Perhaps for me personally it was the biology of bacteria/viruses and the biological mechanism for HIV. But I'm a biology major, so that's to be expected. For next time, the only thing I would change is a small detail - the size of the groups for the anthology. It was somewhat difficult to coordinate with six people with six busy schedules.

I do think it is important that this information be taught at the university level to an extent. not to say that I didn't learn any important information from this class, but I had been taught most of it already. But I remember some students mentioned that there was so much you taught us that they had never heard before, or maybe they had been taught abstinence only. Because of this, I think it's important to teach at the college level. Also, we are a little (a lot) more mature than in high school, so it's easier to be more open when talking about sex in college.

Bob, our guest speaker

I honestly don't think that I learned as much as I thought I would about what it is like to live with HIV/AIDS... Bob really stressed the cost of the medication because of the drug companies. He also talked about the disparities between countries, and where the money is being spent. But I was hoping to hear more about if he is ever discriminated against for being HIV positive. I wanted to hear him talk about the day he was diagnosed, being told that he only had a short amount of time left. I think that would be the most life changing part: the actual diagnosis.

Bob is the sort of stereotypical HIV positive person in the US - it is in this way that his experience is similar to other HIV positive people. When HIV first appeared in the US, it was mainly in gay men. Now, HIV is not a gay disease, but many people thought it was. I don't mean to sound like an awful person, but it just seems like he would not be the ideal person to talk about HIV just because of the pre-existing stereotype. It's not a stereotype I think is true, but from my perspective, it would have been more interesting, or perhaps even more influential hadn't he gotten HIV not from being ridiculously promiscuous. It just seems like it was his choice that he took part in such high risk behaviors. And it was. But his nonchalance with which he talked about how promiscuous he was sort of shocked me. But this could just be the sheltered part of me talking...

Anywhoo, back on track...

His experience is very different from the majority of HIV positive people. He was able to go to a doctor, get diagnosed, and is now successfully taking ARVs. In sub-Saharan Africa, a majority of HIV positive people are not even diagnosed because of the stigma of even getting tested for the disease, as well as lack of access to medical facilities. Even a smaller percentage then get one and stay on ARV prescriptions.

In rural regions, the main mode of HIV transmission is unprotected heterosexual intercourse. There are many social factors that limit prevention from this route of transmission. Rural areas tend to be more religious, and some religions, such as Catholicism, disapprove of any form of birth control - such as condoms. Furthermore there is less education in prevention techniques. Or the education is abstinence only - like Texas. This is a huge mistake. Young adults are going to have sex, so we might as well make sure they are educated about it instead of just telling them not to.

Living in a rural region makes HIV treatment difficult due to lack of access to medical facilities. The nearest hospital may be 50 miles away. Furthermore, the treatment for HIV is very expensive, and some one from a rural area who is maybe a farmer or something, might not be able to afford treatment. Then there's also just the ever present stigma of having HIV that might even prevent testing for it in the first place.

HIV Crossover Theories...

The Hunter Theory is that somewhere in Africa, groups of Hunter's killing chimpanzees for food contracted SIV, and became infected with it. Given the high mutation rate of HIV, it is likely that HIV evolved from SIV to infect humans. This is called zoonosis, when a disease crosses the species barrier, and it is a well documented phenomenon. I think that the contaminated needle theory goes along with the Hunter theory, but only so far as how HIV spread so quickly.

The use of unsterilized needles on multiple people is an excellent way to spread disease. I think that the "Heart of Darkness" theory goes hand in hand with the Hunter theory. It is basically the same thing, but in different circumstances. Zoonosis of SIV by consumption of infected chimpanzee meat.

Although, I must say that my favorite theory is the Conspiracy theory about HIV - and by favorite I mean the most ridiculous and fun to talk about. I think it is ridiculous to believe that a virus would be releases on purpose to target a specific group of "immoral" individuals. There is no way the government could be this stupid. Scientists working for the government know that viruses mutate - there would be no way to insure that only black people and gay people were the only ones infected. After all, we are all the same species. This theory ignores the clear similarities between HIV and SIV, and that the first cases were in Africa in 1959 or even earlier.

I think that it is very important to know how HIV evolved and what it evolved from. That knowledge allows us to track it's movement and rate of mutation. We can see the pattern it takes, and hopefully use this knowledge to prepare for the future. As well as to keep trying to make a vaccine or cure.

About White Privileges

In Peggy McIntosh's article, she talks about how white people in our society are at an advantage to people of other skin colors. That makes sense to me. Although we may think that racism is dead... it isn't. Due to that simple fact, non-white people are still discriminated against. This puts them at a disadvantage. Wherever there is a disadvantage, there must be an advantage. Thus we have the white advantage.

While I agree with her main points, there are some parts of her article that I do not agree with. For example, in her list of white advantages, she lists "I can swear, or dress in second hand cothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the ba morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race." I think certain behaviors, such as swearing and certain clothing styles do connotate the bad morals and illiteracy of white people. Maybe not white people that she's used to, but there certainly exists the term "white trash."

She also mentions that there is not anything to cover blemishes unless you are white. Maybe she needs to take a walk down the makeup isle and see all of the different shades of foundation and cover up that they have. Now most of my disagreements with her are on small points. But maybe this is my unknown white advantage speaking, but she seems to exaggerate on some of her points. Nonetheless, she brings up a good point that there is still a disparity between our perceived races and that something needs to be done about it.

I think that this disparity between races, mainly the white privilege (and the fact that white people don't realize there is one) plays a huge role in the spread and treatment of HIV/AIDS. As noted in class, the main burden of HIV is in subsaharan Africa - where there are people of color. However, the main areas of spending for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention are in places like the US and Europe. Adressing large systems of opression is very important when dealing with sexual health. We need to realize that the -isms are still alive and well. And we need to take that into account when forming policies and education programs for sexual health so that everyone gets what they need to be healthy.

What I know about HIV/AIDS...

Well, being a biology major, I know some of the information surrounding the virus itself. HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood. It is a retrovirus - this means that it carries RNA and when it infects a host cell, its RNA is copied by reverse transcriptase into our own DNA. Basically this causes our own cells to use our mechanisms for transcription and translation to make more copies of the virus. Then the host cell dies and the new viruses go and infect new cells. HIV affects the immune system because the cells it targets are T-cells. It's actually kind of a "smart" virus because T -cells it are used by our immune systems to kill other viruses and bacteria (can you really kill a virus...?).

I know HIV was originally thought to be a "gay disease" because of its first appearance in gay men. It was a highly stigmatized issue at the time with some people saying it was some sort of gift from god because it was kiling all of the right people. I understand that it was a different time period back then, but I just can't understand that a person deserves to die because they happen to have a different sexual orientation. I think there are few things that really merit death.

When it first came out, it was thought that only gay people could get it. I personally don't see how anyone could imagine a pathogen that would infect people based on sexual orientation would be possible. I think it's a tragedy that so many people (especially hemophiliacs) were infected because of blood or platelet trasnsfusions. But then again at that time, they didn't know what the cause of this mystery disease was... And here we see another huge mistake at that time - a lack of finding for research AIDS epidemic because it was such a stigmatized issue. AIDS is an emergent disease, and it has very high rates in Africa and SE Asia - yet again we see the north-south divide. And it is very hard to get prevention/treatment, or even testing in these regions.

I learned this info mostly from high school biology and health classes. However, I'm looking forward to learning more about the HIV virus in biochemistry, as well as more about the AIDS epidemic in this class.

On one last note, what really shocked me in the videos we watched was the interviews with the African women who got AIDS from their husbands. I couldn't believe it when they were talking about how they tried to get their husbands to use condoms... their husbands accused them of cheating, and often times beat them for questoning their authority... completey awful...

The North-South Divide

I feel that the North-South divide is the source of a huge disparity for STDs/AIDS. As we've seen in class, equatorial Africa and South East Asia are always the areas with high prevalence for the disease we're looking at. As Americans, I think we don't really appreciate what we have. We have the resources to provide healthcare - maybe not for all, but for most - and we have funding for disease prevention and research. And I think we take this for granted. I know that if I ever got an STD, it wouldn't be a problem for me to just make a doctor's appointment, get a diagnosis, and get treatment (if possible). But this becomes much more difficult in less developed countries where a lot of people don't have doctors and hospitals in their small town; where treatment, and even education are much harder to come by. Personally, I think Americans who have never been to a third world country or bothered to learn what we are learning in class are blind to how much more difficult disease prevention and treatment is in equatorial Africa and SE Asia. That is why there exists a north-south divide - because maybe we don't really realize there is a divide in the first plalce... Maybe ignorance isn't bliss...

STD ad scare tactics

There are many different ways in which the media informs us about sexually transmitted diseases. Whether it's an ad, a magazine article, or a video, the purpose of this media is to inform the public about STDs in order to encourage safer sex practices and preventions techniques for STDs. However, there are many different ways in which ads can accomplish (or attempt to accomplish) this. The above ad is a very common example that uses scare tactics to hopefully encourage people to be safer when it comes to STDs.

In huge bold letters it states, "10 Filipino women die from cervical cancer," follwed by ten stick figure women below. However, it is not simply just a scare tactic. It also has social connotations - implying that there is a bigger probem with STDs in less developed countries. The statistic is correct though - I found the same information on a few other websites. The group it's aiming at is women. The purpose is to inform women about the risks of HPV and cervical cancer, as well as the higher incedence in less developed countries such as the philipines. I think it is definitely a successful way to scare women about cervical cancer, but other than that, I don't think that this ad has very much merit...

This is the same with many other ads about STDs - they usually seem to employ scare tactics to try to scare people into safer sex. But I don't think this is effective at all. People need to be educated about the facts of STDs, not just scared about them. It is important to see the whole picture when it comes to public health issues such as sexually transmitted diseases. I don't think scare tactics such as this ad should be employed so frequently.

Too late to apologize?

Finally, in 1997, an official apology is given by President Clinton for what happened to the men in the Tuskegee syphilis "study." But this is almost 27 years after the study ended! Why was the apology so long in coming? It was bad enough that the study and all of its unethical glory lasted for thirty years. The few survivors and families of men who passed deserved an apology much sooner. That is not to say that Clinton does not deserve merit for finally apologizing. In fact, I'm glad he did, or it might not have come until just recently...
Even though it took so long for those affected by Tuskegee to receive an apology, I think it was very important that they got one. Clinton addresses some very important points. Some of the main ones being that Tuskegee was the reason that so many African Americans have distrust in the medical system. If this could happen once, who's to say it couldn't happen again? He also lists some measures his administration is going to take in order to right some of the wrongs. But I think the most important part is when he admits "he United States government did something that was wrong -- deeply, profoundly, morally wrong." It is very rare that this actually happens in politics. But it was a necessity here because that's what Tuskegee was - wrong.

Russia's going to launch an ICBM full of smallpox at us!!! Or not...

I find it somewhat ironic that the eradication of a disease can cause it to become a threat later down the road because someone else kept cultures of the pathogen responsible for that disease. To me, it seems almost childish that Russia would do such a thing. If they were indeed to launch this ICBM full of smallpox at us, it would no doubt be the beginning of World War III (if it hasn't begun already). It seems like the reason for all of their smallpox that they're holding on to is a relic of the cold war - maybe they want something with which they can threaten us; something they have that we don't. I mean, let's face it, the US and Russia have not always been the best of friends.
Something else to consider is the fact that if they unleashed smallpox on our major cities, unless all travel and shipping was cut off from North America, smallpox would no doubt spread to the rest of the world - ironically including Russia. And they probably don't also have a stockpile of the smallpox vaccine, so I don't think this is anything to really worry about.
And what if something were to happen and smallpox were to get out in Russia where ever they are storing all of this? I don't really think that keeping smallpox as a weapon for bioterrorism outweighs the public health risks of keeping the pathogen when the vaccine is not made at all due to the fact that the pathogen has been absent from society for years.