Tag Archives: HIV

World AIDS Day: Looking Back

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This post first appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine. I don’t recall when I first heard about AIDS.I was 11 when the first cases were documented by the CDC in 1981, but it took a while before the news percolated down to me. I remember being 12 or 13 and the panic that hit everywhere. […]

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Let’s Hear it For Science! Why Some People Are Immune to AIDS

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Clipped from: healthland.time.com (share this clip) One of the big questions in AIDS research has been answered: why do some HIV-positive people never develop AIDS? About 1 in 300 people with HIV are what scientists call “HIV controllers” because their bodies are able to control the virus and keep it from replicating, which means they […]

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Shame as a Public Health Issue

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This post also appeared on the Good Vibrations Magazine. For years, safer sex advocates have been saying that self-esteem has a huge effect on how much people engage in risk-reduction and harm-reduction behaviors. That’s why many of the most effective intervention programs & organizations, whether online like Scarleteen.com or in-person like the StopAIDS Project, offer […]

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When Politicians Create Disincentives for HIV Testing & Safer Sex Among Sex Workers

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via the Salt Lake Tribune The Utah Senate committee unanimously passed SB155, a law which will allow third-degree felony charges to be brought against sex workers who have tested positive for HIV. Usually, sex work is prosecuted as a misdemeanor in Utah, but there is a mechanism to amp it up to a felony if […]

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mandatory HIV disclosure? no thanks

A few days ago, I was following a Twitter conversation between @AlexaRPD and @audaciaray about the issue of mandatory disclosure of HIV status to sexual partners. In part, it was sparked by a news story about a sex worker whose arrest for prostitution became a felony rather than a misdemeanor because she’s HIV positive. And […]

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it's not an outbreak, dammit!

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There’s been lots more buzz lately about the porn HIV case. Fortunately, there are some places where a more reasonable and informed conversation is taking place. Rather than reiterate it all, here’s a few pointers. Ernest Greene’s blog, with lots of great comments & discussion: here, here & here. That third link has pointers to […]

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more perspectives on HIV & porn

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People are still getting riled up around HIV & porn. And two bloggers whose opinions I generally click with have come to two very different places on this issue. Tony Comstock has some interesting stuff to say about the safety of porn performers and the general lack of response from the sex-positive world. He makes […]

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