It's not an April Fool's joke!
Today and tomorrow the Kansas Legislature will consider a bill that would expand the authority of state and local health officials to impose isolation or quarantine on people living with HIV and other infectious diseases. But quarantine statutes are designed for dangerous diseases spread through casual contact, thus presenting a danger to overall public health.
It is a day that is forever ingrained in your memory, and if you were high or drunk when you received your diagnosis ... you sobered up real quick! Now this is not to say that most folks who are HIV + fall into that category. But if you were caught up in that lifestyle, receiving an HIV diagnosis was not something that you didn't remember the next day. Receiving that diagnosis was enough to blow anybody's mind.
It never fails, every time I try to take a shortcut in life, it ends up being a bad decision that cost more than it would had I just gone ahead and not tried to find an easy way out!
This is a watershed week for the LGBT community and its allies. The Supreme Court is considering two cases on marriage equality -- the first a challenge to California's Proposition 8 and the second a challenge to Section 3 of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Considerable -- and merited -- attention has been devoted to the fairness, dignity, and equality at stake in these cases. And while these reasons alone should be sufficient to ensure same-sex couples' right to marry, it is important to note that marriage equality also promotes LGBT health and strengthens our ability to combat HIV/AIDS.
Spring is here!!! (well ... according to the calendar it is). Time to update your news feed with information that you can read, use and share. Maybe it will spark your inner activist to come alive.
Every three years, the CDC puts out its HIV Surveillance Report which gives a status on infection rates by city, state, region, etc. After the results of the report came out it was found that Philadelphia was ranked 24th among metropolitan area for new AIDS diagnosis. Over 75% of new HIV cases found were actually stage 3 AIDS. Currently there are about 12,000 people in Philadelphia living with HIV/AIDS.
According to the BBC, 28% of South African school girls are HIV positive. This is such a travesty. The South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is stating that young men are not infecting them but older men are. The South African Health Department put out this ad to engage the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Bans Bans Bans!!! We have bans for a lot of things in this country, but one is about to be lifted. The Senate Heath Education and Pensions Committee have approved the HOPE Act, also known as the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act. The act would lift the federal ban on transplanting HIV positive organs to HIV positive recipients.
In January of 2013 I went to India. I never had a desire to go to India. I was asked and I went. The primary reason was to talk to health professionals about addiction and explain the concept that addiction and alcoholism are a disease not just weakness, lack of will power or bad character.
From the time we're born we begin to die. We put bad things in our bodies. We smoke, drink, eat junk food and internally think if no one knows you snuck a candy bar for breakfast it's okay.
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