Can Reporters Read?

[The Rabbi]

This from the Tennessean:

Friday, 12/01/06
Tennesseans encouraged to be tested on World AIDS Day

By CLAUDIA PINTO
Staff writer

On World AIDS Day today, state health department officials are encouraging Tennesseans to be tested for the disease and reminding them that free and confidential HIV testing is available year round at every county health department.

HIV, which causes AIDS, attacks the immune system, making it difficult for the body to fight infection. The virus is commonly transmitted by sexual contact with an infected person, sharing needles with someone who is infected and from infected mother to child before or during birth.
   

The United Nations estimated that 39.5 million people are living with HIV around the world. In 2006, 2.9 million people have died form AIDS and 4.3 million were infected with HIV. However, people are living much longer with the disease because of advances in and access to HIV/AIDS treatment has improved.

So all Tennesseans are encouraged to get tested?

Here's the actual news release from the State health dept:

Education, Prevention Stressed in Fight Against HIV/AIDS

World AIDS Day focuses on Spread of HIV/AIDS in the South
and Minority Communities

Nashville, December 1, 2006

HIV/AIDS has affected every county in Tennessee. In observance of the 19th annual World AIDS Day today, the Tennessee Department of Health asks individuals to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS through education and prevention.

African-American women are increasingly at risk of contracting HIV, said Health Commissioner Kenneth S. Robinson, M.D. It is imperative that all individuals practice safe habits and know their own status and that of their partner to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

African-American women represent the fastest growing population of newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS. Although they make up nine percent of the states population, African-American women comprised 20 percent of new HIV/AIDS cases in 2005.

The United Nations has estimated that 39.5 million people are now affected with HIV in the world. In 2006, 2.9 million people died from AIDS, and 4.3 million contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. However, advances in and access to HIV/AIDS treatment has improved, leading to longer life expectancy for those who are infected.

Health organizations can partner with the faith community to even more greatly affect change and work toward reducing the burden of HIV/AIDS on our communities, Robinson said. The faith community can reach people where they are by communicating healthy living messages to congregants and their family members, mobilizing volunteers to raise awareness within communities and provide social support to those who are living with HIV/AIDS.

Memphis has been chosen for the 2006 national World AIDS Day observance, geared toward educating communities about HIV/AIDS in the South and minority communities; promoting prevention, testing and treatment; encouraging communities to enhance their current reactions to HIV/AIDS; forging collaborative efforts to fight HIV/AIDS; and providing information from the Department of Health and Human Services that will help communities in their response to HIV/AIDS. For more information, please go to http://www.worldaidsday2006.org/.

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that attacks the immune system making it difficult for the body to fight infection and disease.  HIV is transmitted by sexual contact with an infected person, by sharing needles and/or syringes with someone who is infected and from mother to child before or during birth or through breast-feeding.  HIV leads to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), the final stage of HIV infection.  However, having HIV does not mean that a patient has AIDS.  Many people live with HIV for years or even decades before the condition progresses to AIDS.

Free, confidential HIV testing is available at every county health department. A list of local health departments is also available on the Department of Healths Web site at

No mention of encouraging people to get tested.  Sheesh.

[Desertdog]

They report it the way they read it, not necessirily the way it is wrote.

[MechAg94]

No mention of prevention or which part of the population is currently at highest risk either.  Why leave that out?

[Fly320s]

And no mention of the least likely method to contract HIV: straight sex between a heterosexual man and woman.  Medical science and statistics show that men are least likely to get HIV from normal, vaginal sex with a woman.

The risk increases with the use of IV drugs, sex with IV drug users, and anal sex.

[meinbruder]

And no mention of the least likely method to contract HIV: straight sex between a heterosexual man and woman.  Medical science and statistics show that men are least likely to get HIV from normal, vaginal sex with a woman.

The risk increases with the use of IV drugs, sex with IV drug users, and anal sex.

I dont agree with that at all, any exchange of body fluids carries a risk.  Anyone dating or having sex with a variety of people is at risk.  To state that transmission is higher with a narrow definition of circumstance is being simplistic. 

What if that nice girl being dated was a heroin-addicted hooker ten years ago?

What if the boy seeing the young girl next door is a serial rapist, which preys on college girls and has a bottle of Rohypnol in his pocket?

What if the adoring wife had a brief affair with a charming gay man who just wanted to walk on the other side of the street for a taste?

Unless one has been celibate or married for more than the incubation period of HIV, which is about fifteen years the last time I looked, everyone is at risk.  It is only a matter of time before an AIDs test is required before a marriage license can be granted.

Reporters can read all right, most of them get prestige and stature by distorting the news for the purpose of building a career, which is what this byline looks like.  Anyone dating should be aware of the risk and get tested if they are sexually active.

What should infuriate everyone, and spur the government to stop dancing around the disease with rhetoric, is that the incubation period is completely unknown.  A negative test today is really meaningless.  The human immune system requires an exposure to build a defense.  A negative test only means one has not been exposed yet, to the ability of science to detect, not that one will never catch the disease.  A disease with no know cure, an alarming transmission rate world wide, and the potential for ending human existence should be a priority in the medical community; NOT the red-haired stepchild locked in the back room so as not to embarrass the family.
}:)>

[Desertdog]

No mention of prevention or which part of the population is currently at highest risk either.

Want to be sure you are 99.9999 percent safe?  It's a tough road but all you have to do in stay a virgin until you are married and marry a virgin.  The only reason I say this is 99.9999, not 100, percent safe is there has been cases of HIV transmission from donated blood transfusion, and from exposer to tainted blood due to accidents.

[Bogie]

Okay, and would anyone have thought twice if it was the New Hampshire health department mentioned?

It's a virus. It's particularly efficient, in that it keeps the host alive long enough to spread.
 
Other than that, it's a damn shame that it political, and then got the rollers' collective panties in a wad here in the US. Because in a lot of the REST OF THE WORLD it isn't a "gay" disease, or a "drug" disease. It doesn't really care about how it spreads.
 

[Matthew Carberry]

Except that in the US (not worldwide, which numbers are interesting but not particularly relevent) it is and has been predominantly spread in the US by those who participate in unprotected male homosexual sex and/or are needle-using drug abusers.

Sure, the person you're with may be one of those folks, but that doesn't change the fact that sex between heterosexual non-drug abusers is still degrees of magnitude safer.

Just because some person may claim to be be non-intravenous drug using/non-male homosexual contacting and be lying doesn't change that those folks are more likely to be infected.

[Fly320s]

I dont agree with that at all, any exchange of body fluids carries a risk.

You're right.  And you don't have to agree with the statement, but it is factually and medically correct.  It is not a statement that I made up, nor is it my opinion.  According to the medical world, that form of sexual intercourse has the least risk to transmit HIV to a man.

[mfree]

It is imperative that all individuals ... know their own status ... to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Trimmed and cleaned to make it clear.

[meinbruder]

I dont agree with that at all, any exchange of body fluids carries a risk.

You're right.  And you don't have to agree with the statement, but it is factually and medically correct.  It is not a statement that I made up, nor is it my opinion.  According to the medical world, that form of sexual intercourse has the least risk to transmit HIV to a man.

Odd choice of words isnt it; does the medical world care about the woman getting it in this scenario?  She can then send it somewhere else; from there, who knows.  The lottery winners will find out in ten of fifteen years so I guess well worry about it then.

What if&&&one stops one the side of the road to help an accident victim and gets a cut in the process, blood is everywhere and an exposure just occurred. 

What if&&&.the nice lady from the insurance company here to get a blood sample for a medical history takes off her protective gloves after the sampling, and then notices the cotton ball with a blood drop still lying on the table.  Does she expose herself by picking it up?

Exposure without sex happens all the time.  Preaching abstinence and trying to make AIDs a political football is species suicide!  Which is what the Busheviks are doing.

Fortunately, my wife didnt cut herself saving the motorcyclists life when he dumped his bike in front of her on a canyon road.  From the description of how he was riding, I would have left him be; Darwin shouldnt be interfered with.  Her pants and shirt were completely ruined by bloodstains.

The nice lady from the insurance company?  I thought she was going to pass out when she saw the cotton ball; I picked it up and put it in the trash.  She then declined to shake my hand in parting; I tried not to be offended. 

Mfree is right, and I will second that motion.         
}:)>

[Matthew Carberry]

Except that statistically, that isn't how people actually get it in this country. 

The number of transmissions due to accidental saliva or blood contact are negligible (statistically).  The biggest group who caught it not from someone who had been engaged in intravenous drug use and/or male homosexual sex was hemophiliacs due to errors in blood screening.  And that occurred almost 20 years ago.

Again, if your partner falls into one of those two groups and lies about it, thus exposing you without your knowledge, does not change the root behaviors that led you to getting it.  Their choice of behaviors, not yours.

Hetero sex between partners, neither of whom have engaged in intra. drug use or male homosexual contact, is still orders of magnitude safer.

Barring partner deceit (or ignorance) or statistically insignificant accident, you just aren't going to get HIV from normal hetero sex.  Throw in prophylactics and, by the numbers, you're effectively safe.

[Tallpine]

Health organizations can partner with the faith community

Ironically funny 

[The Rabbi]

It is in fact a difficult disease to transmit.  Studies of heterosexual people living together, having sex where one partner is infected show even with that very little infection.  The people most likely to get tested are middle class non-drug abusing heterosexuals, exactly the group at least risk (really negligble risk) for the disease.
I am currently reading Michael Fumento's Myth of Heterosexual Aids, written some time ago but still timely.  Highly recommend it.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Just to qualify my statements, I've studied HIV/AIDS in Virology, Molecular Biology, Moleculare Genetics, Genetics, and Human Immunobiology courses.

In order to "get" AIDS, several factors are involved:

First, there must be direct blood contact.  That is an absolute requirement for the transfer of HIV.  Somehow, the virus *MUST* come into contact with your blood.  Whether that be through a small skin tear, or through an open lesion, or through a hollow needle stick, the HIV virus cannot by itself penetrate intact skin.

Second, there must be enough viral load initially to cause infection.  A single virus particle, under the vast majority of circumstances, cannot cause infection.  The rare exception is if a person is already sufficiently immunocompromised that a very small amount of virus is sufficient to overwhelm the already compromised immune system.  But for people who have normal immune systems, a significant amount of virus is necessary in order to cause infection. 

Now, regarding HIV testing.  The disease process itself (AIDS) may not manifest for 10-15 years, as has been previously pointed out.  However, HIV tests can in most cases detect infection within 6 months of exposure.  In reality, AIDS is actually a symptom of HIV infection.  It takes 10-15 years for the virus to replicate in sufficient quantities, and infect sufficient numbers of the CD4+ lymphocytes (also known as T helper lymphocytes) to cause symptoms.  The human immune system produces antibodies as a result of HIV infection, and those antibodies are detectable on assay tests.  Depending on your immune system, it may take between two weeks and six months to produce sufficient antibodies to be detectable on the qualitative tests used in most HIV testing.  The other type of testing is a quantitative test used to determine "viral load".  This is a test that measures the actual quantity of virus in your body.  This test, while much more accurate, is also much more expensive and takes much longer to perform, so it's not the preferred screening test for HIV infection, but rather is used once an antibody assay is positive to determine the extent of infection.  The viral load tests also are used to determine the efficacy of antiretroviral drugs. 

So why all the above facts?  Simple.   The lowest risk group for HIV transmission, due to the nature of HIV, is the heterosexual, monogamous, non-IV drug using couple. 

Here are some of the major risk factors for HIV transmission:
Unprotected sex
Multiple partners
Concurrent STD infection
Anal sex
IV drug use/shared needles
Unsterlized needles/medical equipment

[richyoung]

.... an alarming transmission rate world wide, and the potential for ending human existence should be a priority in the medical community; NOT the red-haired stepchild locked in the back room so as not to embarrass the family.
}:)>

The "alarming transmission rate world-wide" is actually an alarming transmission rate in AFRICA - where two factors contribute to it mightily:

1.  Renting "temporary wives" to do cooking, cleaning, and you guessed it, sex, especially for truck drivers, and...

2.  The widespread belief that having sex with a virgin, (guanteed blood contact, btw...) will CURE HIV/AIDS.

In the non-IV drug, non-homosexual, non-African world, it is essentially a non-problem, despite the hype.

[richyoung]

 .... Preaching abstinence and trying to make AIDs a political football is species suicide!  Which is what the Busheviks are doing.

Your bias is showing....

[AmbulanceDriver]

Rich, I was going to try to avoid "politicizing" it by sticking to the facts, but unfortunately, they fly right in the face of that particular bias, so I'm sure my facts will be seen as political.


But relating to the OP, I think that the reporter made an "interpretation" of the press release and came up with the "fact" that all people should be tested for HIV.