stone savage

“Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.” - Bertrand Russell

After listening to one of the most infurating statements I have heard in more than a decade I decided do some research via informal discussions and some reading. To be fair I was as irritated over the statement as I was for why it was made in the first place, but that’s irrelevant for this entry, I suppose. Just know that it upset me enough that I ended up spending countless hours over the last week double-checking data before sitting down to write this article.

It isn’t because I questioned the incredulous nature of the statement - that was never in question - I did it because of the alarming message hidden within the statement itself. As it turns out the seriousness of the problem I recognized is much deeper than just one person’s seriously deficient understanding about the real world. No, instead, it seems there is a specific ignorance relating to a very real life or death situation that is systemic to Generation Y.

I am dumbfounded about how we have made a long-lived national issue out of reproductive rights; yet we have really forgotten in the few short years between the emergence of Generation X and Generation Y that there are worse things that can happen to a person as a result of sexual activity than an unwanted pregnancy [1]. What the hell has happened in this country? Have we seriously propagated an ignorance that will cause our youth to kill themselves and others before they can comprehend the magnitude of the consequences of a compounding negligence?

I need to make something excruciatingly clear to every reader of this blog: wanting something to be true, even believing something to be true, does not make it true. If you are going to assume anything - you need to assume not that there is monogamy within your relationship but that there is not.

This isn’t about trust or the lack thereof. This is about health - yours and your partner’s. Care enough to know the facts because not knowing can end up causing you to unwittingly commit murder or suicide.

[More:]

I once taught HIV and AIDS Education for the American Red Cross. Very little was known about the disease back then, relative to what we know today, but what we did know was concrete enough that those facts have not changed. The bad news is that there is still no cure for HIV or AIDS. If you contract HIV it will kill you. The good news is that you will probably live longer with the infection and illnesses today than you would have just 10 or 15 years ago.

In the U.S. male to male transmission make up the majority of new HIV cases, and there is still no documented case of female to female transmission [2]. That last point has always stuck in my brain because of what a college student in a dorm once said to me while I was giving a presentation on the subject. He said AIDS was God’s punishment on homosexuals - and while a better answer would have avoided the recognition of such an inhumane outlook, I retorted that if such was the case lesbians must be God’s “chosen few” since women didn’t seem to be able to transmit the disease to other women that way.

I’m not proud of the fact that I retorted like I did, and I am honestly surprised to find that after all this time that the CDC (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) still has not confirmed such a case. I can’t help but wonder how that young man resolved that particular dilemma in his mind over the years. But what’s worse is I wonder whether there is some behavior that could lead to a transmission and it just hasn’t been discovered by the CDC researchers as a causative yet.

In any case, when someone finds out they’ve been infected today they aren’t being handed an immediate death sentence like was once the case. Today people are given the ability to extend their lives between infection and death by use of medicinal therapy (i.e. antiretroviral drugs, etc.) in a way that could not have happened back when I was instructing - and yet the death sentence is still just as realistic. People today can almost feel like they have the pleasantry of a chronic illness rather than looking at it like a death sentence, but that will only last for so long because there is still a limit to what medicine can do. Back when I taught on the subject the average lifespan from infection to death was around 10 years. Today if you have access to the best of what the medical community can provide you can expect to live around 24 years for around a total cost of $600,000 [2].

Now get ready to digest some information, please. Digest this coming data and let it sober you up and cause you to make some changes to how you live your life - if not for yourself then for those who you will wish you had cared enough for not to harm when the day comes that you have to explain to them why you gave them or yourself a death sentence when it was something so easy to prevent.

AIDS has claimed the lives of more than 25 million people worldwide since 1981 [3] - data prior to 1981 is unknown though the earliest known blood sample showing the existence of HIV is from 1959 with the virus itself likely being around since sometime in the very early 1940s[4] although a recent study may indicated a date as early as 1908 [4a]. The current number of those living with HIV or AIDS in the United States is a little over 1 million people - with roughly 250,000 of them unaware of their own infection or that they are putting themselves and their partners at risk for infection [5]. 56,000 new cases of HIV are occurring every year in the U.S. and more than 74% of them are males with the other 26% being females - with more than 80% of those women being infected by heterosexual risky sex (i.e. unprotected) with male partners… and that’s just amongst those being tested, which turns out to be only about 40% of the population [6].

A third of these cases are in people under the age of 30 [7] which means, if you can do the math, that if you contract HIV at the age of 23, you will be dead before your 48th birthday. Please think about what that means - and what those years will be like.

So, now that I have hopefully caused you to sit up and take notice - and have given you all those citations so you know I’m not making up the facts as I go along, maybe you will stop and rethink that sexual behavior of yours and the belief that you can safely assume anything when it comes to your sexual partners. Now, please allow me to give you some specific facts that can help you in preventing the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Knowing this information, and how to use it, will help you to protect yourself as well as those you love - while ignoring the facts puts all those lives at risk.

A person can become infected with HIV when the blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal fluid, or breast milk from an infected person enters the body of an uninfected person [8]. As with many other bacterial and viral infections the main entry points into the body for HIV are via veins (e.g., use of intravenous needles), the lining of the anus or rectum, the lining of the vagina and/or cervix, the opening to the penis, the mouth, other mucous membranes (e.g., eyes or inside of the nose), or cuts and sores [9]. HIV cannot be transmitted without an exchange of bodily fluids and is not an airborne virus [10].

The primary methods for contracting HIV are:

• Having sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) with an infected partner
• Sharing intravenous needles (e.g. IV drug) with an infected person
• Through birth or breastfeeding (mother to child in-utero, during birth, or via breastfeeding)
• Receiving an infected organ via transplant or via blood product such as platelets or transfusion [11]

Regular scheduled STD (sexually transmitted disease) screenings during sexually active periods of your life (and this includes up to 6 months after the end of your last sexual activity) are essential for helping to ensure you do not have HIV and other infections. Before you begin a sexual relationship with someone be sure you know they are clean - don’t take their word for it, demand to see their last STD screening result. If they don’t have one then their “word” is meaningless and you are taking your life in your hands - and the lives of future partners if it turns out you end up getting infected.

Condoms and dental dams are not 100% effective at anything but they absolutely do reduce the risk of infection from many different STDs. There are some STDs that condoms are ineffectual at preventing so keep that in mind, but never have unprotected sex with anyone at anytime unless you trust that person with an absolute certainty that any sexual activity outside of your partnership would be fully disclosed prior to the two of you engaging again in activity with one another. It’s not about jealousy that you need to have this talk with your partner - it’s about your lives and it’s as simple as saying something like this: “whatever I feel about any choice you may one day make to be with another person - all I can ask of you is that you let me know about it if it happens” add whatever you want onto the end of that as you will, but the point is always so that you can ensure you have not placed yourselves at medical risk.

Just because you have had only a couple of sexual partners does not mean that you are at less of a risk for contracting the infection - and the opposite is also true, just because you’ve had a lot of sexual partners does not mean you are at a greater risk for infection. The behaviors that put you at risk are not with the number of partners but with the kinds of partners, the actions the two of you engage in with each other and with others, and the level of protection you use or don’t use. A prostitute who uses a condom for every sexual encounter, for instance, is actually at less risk than the virgin who has unprotected sex with just one person who may themselves be at risk.

Always remember that every time you have sex with someone new you end up having sex with every person your partner has ever been with - and if you think about it that way maybe it will help you to understand why precautions and care become so important. Casual sex where both parties are using protection is actually a less risky behavior than a relationship where assumptions are made and discussions are never had and protection isn’t used - even if that lack of protection was just once.

Get tested on a regular basis because no matter what the nature of your relationship is, you must always know your own status. Take care of yourself because too many people won’t care enough to worry about whether they’ve infected you or not. Enjoy your life but pick your partners with care and always be sure you know exactly the right sort of protection to use in the right situation.

As for me… the degree of unbelievable fury I have experienced over finding out just how little the next generation is being taught has sent me back to the American Red Cross. I’ll be getting re-certified and will start instructing again soon. I may not be able to reach all the young people in the world, but if I can help to save even one person’s life by providing them the information they need to protect themselves then… well… I think I’m good with that.

American Red Cross site for HIV and AIDS education: click here

Information on HIV and AIDS as collected by the CDC: click here

Information about types and subtypes of HIV: click here

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