OPINION. One objection against the use of ARV treatment for HIV prevention is that it puts people on treatment whilst they may clinically not need it. My first reaction to that is to ask when is it clinically relevant to treat an HIV infected person? So far the various guidelines produced are clear and based on the CD4 count. But the guidelines have changed during the years and the goalpost has been moved from below 200 to below 350 and soon to below 500 and is reaching the mean Cd4 …

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 …

Lost Decade Gays

It used to be simple: there were the Gay ones and the Rest (though the Rest would have said that “there was us and the Gay guy next door”). But starting at the end of the “sleepy 50s” to climax by the end of the “Glorious 30s” (1945-1975), a sexual revolution had happened and had revealed a world of sexualities.
It was no coincidence that the “Lost Decade” (1980-1990) inaugurated by the abandon of state-led development policies in favour of Neo-liberalism was also the starting point of the tragic …

And would alternative policies deliver in the fight against HIV/AIDS?
This is what Rick Rowden, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid International USA, puts forward in his book “The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS”.

I have not read the book yet but went to the recent UK launch organised by the publisher Zed at the SOAS in London. I can only report on my first impressions about the thesis that IMF policies, by constraining and limiting health policies and budgets in poor …

With same-sex marriage defeats in New York and New Jersey, and gay marriage currently on trial in California it’s time to play “whose marriage is it”. All you have to do is say “gay or straight”. Now you are in the hot seat!
Another brilliant instalment from Mark Fiore.

Rating 3.00 out of 5