Catching a riffle

Today is the day we commemorate World Aids Day. It is sad for me to still see and hear the stigma, ignorance, and even hate that surrounds this disease. There are a lot of places that you can go on the web to gain a better understanding of this plague. Several big misunderstandings are as follows. HIV = AIDs. It doesn’t. Only “they” the despicable underbelly of our society can get this disease. Also not true. This disease is striking young, old, gay, straight, drug using, and non drug using. In short, anyone can catch this disease. There are quite a few precautions that you can take to reduce your risk. I won’t go into them all but wearing a condom is one of them. Check out the following three websites to gain a better understanding of this disease. http://www.worldaidsday.org/ http://www.thebody.com/ http://www.poz.com/

Do yourself a favor. Do the world a favor. Go get yourself tested. The worst that can happen is that you find out that you are positive. There are treatments that slow the progress of the HIV disease. You can stop unwittingly spreading this disease. Working together we can stamp out this modern plague and prevent future generations from having to deal with it.

Today is the day that YOU can make that step and get tested. Knowledge is the best weapon we have. Just do it. :-)

Here in St. Louis you can get tested for free in quite a few places. One of which that comes to mind is the:

Saint Louis Effort for AIDS
1027 S. Vandeventer #700 » Saint Louis, MO 63110 
314.645.6451 » Monday - Friday » 9 am - 5 pm
http://www.stlefa.org/

EARLIER this month, a study published in the journal Science answered a question that medical scientists had been asking since 2006, when they learned of a novel virus found in prostate tumors called xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus, or XMRV: Was it a human infection?

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Vivienne Flesher

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Health Guide: Chronic Fatigue

XMRV is a gammaretrovirus, one of a family of viruses long-studied in animals but not known to infect people. In animals, these retroviruses can cause horrendous neurological problems, immune deficiency, lymphoma and leukemia. The new study provided overwhelming evidence that XMRV is a human gammaretrovirus — the third human retrovirus (after H.I.V. and human lymphotropic viruses, which cause leukemia and lymphoma). Infection is permanent and, yes, it can spread from person to person (though it is not yet known how the virus is transmitted).

That would have been news enough, but there was more. XMRV had been discovered in people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, a malady whose very existence has been a subject of debate for 25 years. For sufferers of this disease, the news has offered enormous hope. Being seriously ill for years, even decades, is nightmarish enough, but patients are also the targets of ridicule and hostility that stem from the perception that it is all in their heads. In the study, 67 percent of the 101 patients with the disease were found to have XMRV in their cells. If further study finds that XMRV actually causes their condition, it may open the door to useful treatments. At least, it will be time to jettison the stigmatizing name chronic fatigue syndrome.

What popular media and science are not telling you. I hate having to find this sort of thing out from Op-Ed pieces.

—Mati :-)

I Have Something to Tell You” had made its point: Know your status, speak your truth, protect your partners, erase the stigma.

The Word!