As a volunteer for a gay men’s organisation I am sometimes involved in HIV prevention work in gay venues in central London. The organisation I work for develops posters, adverts and booklets to promote HIV prevention messages targeting a specific audience.
Recently, I was helping pre-testing our latest booklet to which I had also contributed. Therefore I knew what the booklet was about, which is usually not the case since editorial and testing teams are different. Over a period of two hours I interviewed ten people who agreed, some after a …

PITTSBURGH (PA, USA) – Women represent more than half of those infected with HIV worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa the figure reaches 60% and such a high rate of infection occurs in a context where women’s fertility rate is also high compared to the developed world. Pregnancy is therefore a critical issue when reseearching and responding to the HIV epidemics but little is known about the impact of pregnancy on HIV transmission and results are contradictory.
However, for the first time, a research team has investigated in a large study the impact …

In a recent posting I suggested that the possibility to show your HIV status online proves “how much has been accomplished in stamping out stigma”. A reader objected that “Actually, no. This is a move to culturally pressured disclosure so that people with HIV can be further minoritized and excluded, and presumed HIV-negative people can couple with potentially dangerous self-satisfaction.”
A search on the Fridae.com website which allows for publicly showing one’s HIV status returns 280 profiles (110 of them Caucasian) stating being HIV negative at the last test (a period …

HIV acquisition and HIV transmission through sexual intercourse are two very different things. The former relates to an HIV negative individual being infected by an HIV positive person whilst the later is about an HIV positive individual infecting an HIV negative person.
That may seems obvious or hair splitting, but when it comes to ending the spread of HIV in the population, it is very important to understand the difference between HIV acquisition and HIV transmission.
HIV acquisition can be regarded as a dynamic and active process in the person exposed to …

Watch this provocative TED talk and read the accompanying article at CNN.

The Compassionate Conundrum by Elizabeth Pisani

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