For teens and young adults. With links on HIV testing, the window period, and statistics.
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For teens and young adults. Research HIV-AIDS statistics and learn about the changing face of HIV and AIDS in the U.S. and also about HIV statistics in Africa and how they are gathered! You need to be able to read graphs to do this activity--however, if you are under thirteen and/or find graphs tricky to read, you can play this with an older brother or sister or friend and discuss the graphs you see with them!
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HIV versus AIDS
A Definition
- HIV
- HIV stands for the Human
Immuno-deficiency Virus.
It's Human, because it infects humans; Immuno-deficiency,because it's associated with impaired immune function (AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome), that is, impaired ability to fight infection--though it's possible for someone to be infected with HIV for years and still have a good immune system Virus, because it is a virus. For more about viruses, see Microbe World's "Virus or Bacterium?" and K-8 Science.org's Virus Slides, especially slides 17-26.
- AIDS
- AIDS stands for Acquired
Immune Deficiency
Syndrome.
It's Acquired, through infection
with the virus; AIDS cannot be transmitted directly, so you cannot catch AIDS from a person. You can only catch the virus itself, HIV; being infected with HIV is associated with AIDS.
and an Immune Deficiency Syndrome, because it is the name for impaired immune function, that is, people with AIDS have trouble fighting off infections that most people fight off with no problem! For this reason, it's especially important for persons with AIDS to practice safe sex!
Progression from HIV infection to actual AIDS varies not only with a person's overall health and resistance to diseases, but also with the way the person contracted the human immunodeficiency virus, according to Robert S. Root-Bernstein (1995), Myth One of Five Myths About AIDS That Have Misdirected Research and Treatment. A person who contracts HIV through a blood transfusion may progress very rapidly to AIDS, according to Root-Bernstein.
Progression may be accelerated by an opportunistic infection, since it varies with the person's health.
Animals do sometimes catch viruses similar to HIV; see http://hkaids.med.cuhk.edu.hk/edu/faq8.htm. With the exception of some of the viruses that infect monkey/chimpanzees, none of these can be transmitted to humans.
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Transmission and Prevention of HIV
Tips
- Saying No and Postponing Sex--Tips from Channing L. Bete's (1997) 'Abstaining from Sex' (Talk with your partner!)
- Good Reasons for Postponing Sex
- Sex complicates relationships. Abstinence from sex gives you time to get to know one another.
- There are ways to show affection without having sex--dry kissing,hugging,and holding hands.
- How to Say No! Ways to Answer Your Date (Tips from Channing L. Bete's [1997] 'Abstaining from Sex')
-
'If you really loved me, you'd have sex with me.' ANSWER: 'If you
really loved me, you wouldn't pressure me.'
-
'Everybody's doing it.' ANSWER: 'That's not true. I'm not doing it
and I'm somebody.'
-
'If I don't relieve this tension, I'll be in physical pain.'
ANSWER: 'That's a myth. Besides, if I have sex before I'm ready, I'll be hurt emotionally.'
-
'What's wrong with you? ANSWER: 'There's nothing wrong with choosing
to wait.'
Remember, whether its drugs or sex 'It's o.k. to say 'No!' Go
ahead and let your feelings show.' (Quotation from Joe Beard, and Susan Amerikaner, song, 'It's O.k. to Say No.'
- Dating (and Drinking) Tips
- Tips for Safe Sex!--From AIDSInfo
- "Staying Safe"
- 5 Myths About STD's--from KidsHealth
- 5 Myths About STD's(Who can get them and how to prevent them.)
- Brushing Teeth and Bleeding Gums
- Just like running makes your heart beat faster, brushing your teeth can make your gums bleed. Bleeding gums can make you more vulnerable to infections--but the more you brush, the less your gums bleed and the likeliness of contracting an infection by mouth goes down. Similarly, regular dental care can help. Careful brushing and flossing keep your teeth and gums healthy so they do not bleed all the time and become infected. Healthy teeth and gums can help protect you from illnesses, including HIV.
- How effective is a barrier--such as latex--against HIV?
- Check out:
Table 2: Risk of HIV Transmission Associated With Various Practices (Table derived from information in Grimes and Grimes [1994])
and
Barriers to Transmission and Virus Transmission
- What About Serial Monogamy?
- Serial monogamy is being faithful or 'monogamous' to partners in a series. This means that you date only one person at a time, but you date a series of people. Is this safe?
The more partners you have, the more likely you are to be exposed to more diseases. So the longer you stay with one partner the safer. On the other hand, if all you do is 'dry kiss,' you can probably date different people, even at once.
Population Action International's bulletin, "Unsafe Sex Destroys Lives" argues that serial monogamy is safer than having multiple partners at the same time, but that it is unfortunate that, in some cases, one partner is faithful while the other is not! What do you think? Serial monogamy is certainly safest if you and your partner both get tested for HIV and other STD's before having sex, and then share test results. To be really safe, you should wait the Window Period--that's 3 to 6 months, and get tested together for HIV again before having unprotected sex.
- Alcohol
- People do foolish things sometimes when drunk. Should you drink when you are on a date? Should you drink at all? Study these links and decide.
- Alcohol's Effects on the Body
- Alcohol's Effects on Judgement-- Alcohol Awareness Information from the Prophetstown Lyndon Tampico School District in Illinois' web pages. (If you have problems accessing this link--try clicking the back button and then the forward button on your browser!)
- How Alcohol Affects the Brain-- Alcohol does not actually kill brain cells, at least the quantities that normally cross the brain barrier--but it does disrupt their communication network, according to Wonder Quest with April Holladay. The good news is that changing your drinking habits allows the damage to repair!
(A Drexel University report has noted that metabolism of alcohol occurs in the liver and requires B-complex vitamins; the liver can process about 1/2 ounce of alcohol every hour or hour-and-a-half. Unprocessed alcohol must circulate through the bloodstream until the liver can process it. From the bloodstream, it goes to the brain. In the forebrain, it affects judgement and reasoning. In the midbrain, it affects muscular control. In the hindbrain, it affects respiration and heart rate. With twelve or more drinks, death is often possible from alcohol!)
- About.com "Alcohol Liver Disease" (Information about alcohol's effects on the liver--sometimes alcohol-induced liver disease is reversible; sometimes not!)
- Tips On Alcohol--Reasons Not to Drink, and How to Drink Safely If You Do.
- Are There Any Benefits to Drinking in Moderation? While Alcohol, Even in Moderation, Destroys B-vitamins, it may nevertheless have some heart benefits for older persons.
- The Nutrition Source: Alcohol: the Bottom Line From Harvard's School of Public Health.
(The pro's and con's of moderate alcohol drinking.)
- "You're Better Off With Beer"
Gregg Glaser discusses beer and your health.
(He argues that moderate consumption of beer has health benefits.)
-
"Alcohol increases homocysteine and reduces B vitamin concentration in healthy male volunteers—a randomized, crossover intervention study"
By A. Gibson, J.V. Woodside, I.S. Young, P.C. Sharpe, C. Mercer, C.C. Patterson, M.C. Mckinley, L.A.J. Kluijtmans, A.S. Whitehead, and A. Evans.
Centre for Clinical and Population Science, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK; Clinical Biochemistry, Craigavon Area Hospital, Craigavon, UK; Laboratory of Paediatrics and Neurology, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; and Department of Pharmacology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
(No matter what you drink, even moderate alcohol may destroy nutrients, according to this study.)
- Treatment of Alcohol Abuse
- Betty Ford worked to conquer her own alcohol dependence and founded a treatment center for others! Check Out Inpatient- and Outpatient-Treatment Available for Substance Abuse Problems at the Betty Ford Center
- http://www.psychtreatment.com/alcohol_abuse.htm A good summary of issues around alcoholism (alcoholism is associated with poor other addictions, whether or not parents drink, and poor nutrition, according to the author.) Does poor nutrition make you drink? Most alcoholics are malnourished according to Paul Susic who cites Rosenblug (1999: 167),
" . . .Rosenbluh (1999) pointed out that providing the necessary brain cell energy to make the cells in the cerebral cortex work more efficiently seems to do away with any desire to drink. "Will power is a balanced blood sugar. When the alcoholics reactive hypoglycemia is controlled through proper nutrition, the ability to drink disappears" (Rosenbluh, 1999, p. 167).
"
- Needles, syringes, and HIV--among drug users, and in medicine in the third world
Syringes are reused in the United States (largely by injectiopn drug users) and in the third world, by sellers of antibiotic injections (for person's seeking cheaper cures) as well as by cash-strapped clinics.
Like all medicine, injections should be administered only when needed. This helps reduce allergic reactions, insures that the medicine works when it's needed. This also helps to cut down the number of dirty needles that people will reuse.
Using injections only when needed is important as is ensuring that you get a clean needle with your injection.
- http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/PS_SyringeReuseFS.html
- The CDC's Fact Sheet (2008), "Syringe Reuse: A Patient Safety Threat"
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-3SWXX70-14&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1115970590&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8ae70ff6cea4940f2a0e4468199b55e6
- Some people in the United States reuse syringes for their antibiotics and vitamins.
Check out this abstract of an article available through Science Direct,
"Lay injection practices among migrant farmworkers in the age of AIDS: Evolution of a biomedical folk practice,"
by Kristine L. S. P. McVea
(July, 1997; Department of Family Practice, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 600 South 42nd Street, Omaha, NE 68198-3075, U.S.A.),
Social Science & Medicine, 45(1): 91-98;
Science Direct doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(96)00318-8
- http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85278
- IRIN (U.N. office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), "AFRICA: Poor syringe hygiene can be fatal" (Nairobi: 14 July, 2009)
- http://www.who.int/injection_safety/toolbox/en/Simonsen.pdf
- The WHO's In Focus, "Unsafe injection in the developing world and transmission of bloodborne pathogens: a review,"
by L. Simonse, A. Kane, J. Loyd, M. Zaffran, and M. Kane.
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How HIV Is Transmitted
Fluids That Transmit and Do Not Transmit HIV
- HIV Is Transmitted By:
- Blood (This includes blood products, such as the immunoglobulins used in post-exposure vaccinations for rabies and hepatitis A; and the clotting factor given to persons with hemophilia. Today of course, blood products are screened for HIV and hepatitis C, though it is occasionally possible for some infected blood to get into the supply, particularly when the infection is in the early stages and still undetectable--but this is rare. Screening of blood products for HIV started sporadically in late 1984, but did not really become at all effective until 1986. Blood products were not screened for Hepatitis C before 1994, however! Blood products are still not screened for all infections, though work is being done to make blood products safer. Someday blood products may be treated using radiation. The Red Cross uses only donated blood, and never buys blood, so its blood is generally safer than the blood and plasma products supplied by 'for profit' blood suppliers--however, since plasma donation is quite painful compared to whole blood donation, it is difficult to get plasma [which is needed to manufacture immunoglobulins and blood clotting factor] from unpaid donors. Blood outside the body is not nearly as dangerous once it has dried.)
- Semen
- Vaginal Fluids (HIV is not quite as concentrated in these as in semen, but,it depends on a persons's Viral Load)
- Breast Milk
That's it!
- It Is Very Unlikely That HIV Can Be Transmitted By:
- Urine
Urine is too acidic, and only trace
amounts of HIV are found in it!
- Saliva
Saliva is one of those fluids that has all those good IgA antibodies in it! IgA antibodies are the 'Guardians at the Gates' of the body--they protect the body's mouth and skin (and occasionally other areas in certain individuals) from outside invaders.
But the mouth can have blood in it, if you have a sore, dental
infection, or bleeding or infected gums--so be careful.
- Sweat
Sweat is another fluid with lots of the IgA 'Guardian-at-the-Gates' antibodies. The antibodies in sweat help protect the skin from microbial infection. No need to worry about pumping muscles and working out with your friends. (IgA antibodies protect the body from more than HIV, so, keep the juices flowing by not
getting dehydrated!)
- Tears
Tears are similar to sweat--salty, watery, and full of IgA antibodies again.
- Skin-to-skin contact,
with the skin protected by all those good IgA antibodies in sweat--provided there are no cuts or breaks--is pretty safe. Indeed, skin is one of the best barriers to infections ever made.
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Progression to AIDS: wasting and opportunistic infections.
AIDS Wasting
- AIDS Wasting
- is the SINGLE FACTOR most
associated with disease progression and death in HIV/AIDS! Clinically defined as the loss of more than 10 percent of one's body weight accompanied by more than 30 days of either diarrhea, weakness, or fever; losing as little as 5 percent of one's body weight can have the same effect! More important than weight loss is the loss of 'lean tissue.' 'Wasting' may be accelerated by infection, and may trigger diabetes-like symptoms, since not only muscle mass is loss, but adipose, the good layer of fat that insulates the body, protecting it from the cold.
Here's brief information about 'wasting' and HIV.
Microbes and Microbial Infections
Microbes are the most abundant form of life on the planet. They are all around us. Microbes--described in more detail at Microbe World--help to make the environment and our bodies healthy; however microbes can also make us sick.
Because people with AIDS have lost some of their body's natural immunity, they are more susceptible to infection by microbes, even microbes that are normally harmless.
Microbes include viruses, bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and moulds and fungi. Some microbes are essential for soil and intestinal health. Some microbes make us sick. Although we have antibiotics for many bacteria, bacteria can mutate and become resistant to antibiotics; in addition, antibiotics can kill off essential bacteria leaving a place for microbes to grow. We have far fewer anti-virals for viruses--although some traditional remedies--such as elderberries (a traditional remedy from the Americas)--may fight off some viruses (elderberries are believed to fight off the flue--but more data is needed).
Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics when exposed to antibiotics that do not kill all the bacteria in the infecting colonies.
All the bacteria are less likely to be killed when a sick person or animal's flora and fauna are out of balance, when other elements of a sick person or animal's immune system are not working properly due to malnutrition, lack of rest, and/or depletion of disease-fighting proteins due to longterm illness,
or when a bacteria has so completely invaded a person's system (in a long-term infection) that it has overwhelmed the system and can no longer be eliminated with a course of antibiotics. Thus some late-stage bacterial infections are considered untreatable. In addition, an insufficient course of antibiotics can result in bacterial resistance to the antibiotics.
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How did HIV evolve? How do microbes evolve? Everyone's got a theory . . .
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Whether you have HIV or AIDS or neither, nutrition is important.
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(Todja apparently contracted the feline immune deficiency virus--not transmissable to humans, by the way, in 1998, from a dirty injection; he developed full-blown AIDS in 2001, while living in Pennsylvania; he died in 2004, at the age of 15.)
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Useful Numbers
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Great Links
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Great Reading
- Fiction--Young Adult
- Michael Dorris, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. (The life stories of three women are narrated in this novel, often regarded as one of the finest novels written this century. Rayona is a half-black, half-Indian teenager with many strikes against her. First, her Black father is never around. Second, her Indian mother is dying from alcohol-related illness. And then there's her good looking but hard drinking cousin, 'Foxy,' who cannot let Rayona forget that her skin is darker than his. And finally there is the reservation priest who has a thing for Rayona. Poor Rayona is everyone's favorite kid to pick on it seems, but she makes new friends, finds a summer job in the wilderness, and almost, almost, though she has never ridden a horse before, rides 'Babe,' a wild, unbroken horse that belongs to her mother's boyfriend, in a rodeo. The rodeo judges do not even realize Rayona is a girl until they decide to award her the hard luck medal. . . For good readers, fourteen and older, adults included.)
- Dorris Lessing, Memoirs of a Survivor. (This science fiction story takes place after 'IT' happens, though we are never told exactly what 'IT' is that has happened. But afterwards, a young girl brings her pet, half-dog, half-cat, home to live with an older woman. The pet, who has seen enough of the world by then, is content to look out from the window as gangs of unsupervised children roam the streets. Gone are the people who understood technology, everything, and technical gadgets dangle around that no one knows how to use. People must learn everything from scratch. For readers, seventeen and up.)
- Graham Salisbury, Blue Skin of the Sea: A Novel in Stories. (A young Hawaiian named Sonny Menendez has spent his childhood with his cousin Keo and his wonderful aunt Pearl after his French mother's death. Now he is old enough that his Hawaiian father feels able to take him back. In this collection of stories about coming of age, Sonny encounters gangs in 'The Year of the Black Widows,' and looks with new eyes at tourism and development in the Hawaiian paradise when he gets his first job in 'Get Mister Red a Beer.' For readers eleven and up--but adults will enjoy this too.)
- Non-fiction
- Anonymous, Go Ask Alice. (The story of a young woman from an affluent family who follows her peers into the seductive world of drugs. Here, the heroine finds a world of abuse and rape. Though she is resourceful enough to start her own business, and has the support of her family, she knows too much about the drug culture to escape. For readers aged 13 and up.)
- Anonymous, It Happened To Nancy, retold and edited by Beatrice Sparks. (The story of a teen who is raped by a boyfriend and learns to live with--and die from--HIV/AIDS. For readers aged 13 and up.)
- Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. (This collection of essays on microbes and disease today makes fascinating reading, as Garrett, a journalist, has interviewed doctors and disease researchers all over the world. Some of it may be difficult reading for young readers. However, readers who have grown up in neighborhoods surrounded by drugs and sex may relate to 'Distant Thunder.' Another chapter, 'Microbe Magnets,' which explores the evolution of cities and microbes, is not too difficult to follow.)
- Gail B. Stewart, The Other America: People With AIDS. (Interviews with several people living with AIDS. Age 13 up.)
These books are generally available at libraries. If not at your library, you can get them through interlibrary loan. They're also available at Amazon.com.
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