Big Country HIV/AIDS, Big Country Press and Big Country Blogging !
Wednesday June 14, 2006
Op Ed: Columnists Brownwood Buletin
Pondering the life — and death — of a childhood friend — Bill Crist
He had his reasons, I’m sure, but I never really got an explanation for why I was the last among our group of friends to learn he was gay. I believe I was also the last to learn, only last Sunday, that he died in February as a result of developing acquired immune deficiency syndrome, better known as AIDS. Although we knew he’d picked up the disease, no one I grew up with had any idea he’d gotten as sick as he had. In some ways that’s not surprising, though, because once Drew had “come out” to each of us that he’d grown up with, he pretty much cut ties with us. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I’d spoken to or seen him over the past 18 years.
At any given time, there were five or six of us who lived in the same neighborhood and considered ourselves best friends. Aside from proximity and age, I’m not sure that we had a lot in common, other than that we enjoyed being boys — building forts and treehouses, goofing off, and spending hours finding ways to entertain ourselves. A couple were lifelong (eight years in this case) residents of Arlington, while others of us moved in from the four corners of the country. As we grew a little older and entered high school, we still did many things together, but at the same time we all started growing apart just slightly. There were more opportunities to get involved in activities we enjoyed, such as athletics, theater, honors classes and girlfriends.
More than 22 million people have died from AIDS since the outset of its spread. A virus causes it, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which people can carry for many years before they develop AIDS. There are a number of ways that people contract the virus, and in my friend’s case, he probably picked it up as a result of his lifestyle. And for that reason I have had very conflicted emotions about my feelings about Drew’s situation ever since I learned of his infection.
Did I approve of Drew’s lifestyle? Not really, but how he chose to live his life was his decision to make, not mine. It’s growing more popular to hold people accountable for their actions, particularly as they relate to lifestyle and health. The ongoing conversations about smoking and poor diets — and what society’s responsibility for the treatment of the health problems caused by those two activities should be — don’t have an easy resolution. And in many cases there is no doubt that becoming infected with HIV is the result of a deliberate act by someone, just like choosing to smoke. Who he chose to have a relationship with, and the lifestyle that came with that, could not undo the time we’d spent together growing up and developing our friendship though. I did not approve of what led to the virus, but that didn’t mean I cared any less for the person who had it.
As a Christian heterosexual, it is difficult to have a conversation about homosexuality, or AIDS, in today’s world of extreme points of view. Although it’s been said that 80 percent of Americans fall into what would be considered moderate, approving of various beliefs from both the liberal and conservative point of view, their voices are drowned out on talk radio, on cable television, in blogs and at the coffee shop. Those conversations tend to oversimplify issues, offering only right or wrong, only black or white, positions with no room for a middle ground.
After I learned Drew had contracted HIV, I pulled out an old picture that was taken after our high school Vespers service. In it the two of us, along with another friend, have our arms around each other and are smiling at the camera. When I gave him a copy of it, he joked that it was the kind of picture one of us would have displayed at our funeral. I kept a copy of the photo in my office with some other pictures. I pulled it out again this week after learning of his passing. I doubt it was on display at his funeral, but it’s out on my desk today, leading me to reflect on what was, what is and what may be.
Bill Crist is associate publisher of the Brownwood Bulletin. His column appears on Wednesday. He may be reached by e-mail at bill.crist@brownwoodbulletin.com.
source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/06/14/op_ed/columnists/opinion04.txt
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Note from Steve Harris: The stories found below, as well as the ones found above, are an example of why I Blog ( Offering another piece of the information pie that is "often" not covered by the local press) ! Is anyone's viewpoint being "drowned out" here ? I offer my condolences to Bill Crist in the loss of his friend Drew.
Navy health officials push condom use
United Press International - April 21, 2005
Pamela Hess, UPI Pentagon Correspondent
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- Armed with alarming statistics about unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among sailors and Marines, the U.S. Navy's doctors are advocating that commanders promote the use and availability of condoms, and even offer them for free to their troops.
The Navy office's advocacy of condom use as a means of combating disease and pregnancy appears to be at odds with the White House's embrace of abstinence as the best means of preventing disease and pregnancy, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recent revisions to its stance on condoms.
According to Navy data, since 1985 more than 5,000 sailors and Marines have been infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, costing the Navy healthcare system $12,000 per patient or $6 million a year to treat them. In 2004 there were 106 new cases of HIV in the Navy and Marine Corps. Each year the Navy assumes a lifetime healthcare cost of $20 million for sailors and Marines infected with HIV.
There were about 4,500 unplanned pregnancies -- nearly 70 percent of all enlisted pregnancies are not planned. Their total healthcare cost for the Navy was about $16 million, about $3,200 per pregnancy.
In response, the Navy Environmental Health Center's Sexual Health and Responsibility Program in its June 2005 Message for Commanders encourages Navy and Marine leaders to establish a climate of sexual responsibility, including ensuring their crews know how to use condoms and have access to them.
The guidance to commanders is not put forth as official Navy policy, but rather as suggestions for ensuring the health and the readiness of the fleet.
The program -- known by its initials SHARP -- suggests that condoms be available for free as standard protective gear on par with earplugs -- an attempt to destigmatize condoms and get them in the hands of those who need them.
And many do. According to the latest Defense Department numbers, in 2002 46 percent of Navy service personnel reported using a condom in their last sexual encounter. Marines reported 43.3 percent use of condoms. The Army reported 39.6 percent use and the Air Force 40.2 percent use.
The Navy Environmental Health Center recognizes that ensuring crew access to condoms is an emotionally charged issue "requiring thoughtful planning and leadership courage." SHARP provides commanders a lengthy document discussing ways to increase condom use and availability.
Not only is the issue emotionally charged, it is increasingly politically charged. Once widely embraced as the best means of preventing the transmission of HIV and several other diseases, condom use has fallen out of favor with the Bush administration which advocates abstinence as the best approach to control AIDS, particularly among youth and the unmarried, according to a government official who follows the issue closely.
President George W. Bush's 5-year strategy to reduce the HIV infection rate overseas will provide at least $133 million annually to abstinence-until-marriage programs in 15 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and in Vietnam, totaling at least $665 million.
The plan does promote condom distribution "as appropriate," but it singles this out as a strategy for "those who are infected or who are unable to avoid high-risk behaviors," rather than for the otherwise healthy populations.
At a Berlin AIDS conference in 2004, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias said that promoting abstinence and monogamy are "far more effective" than distributing condoms for preventing the spread of HIV.
"Statistics show that condoms really have not been very effective," Tobias said. "It's been the principal prevention device for the last 20 years, and I think one needs only to look at what's happening with the infection rates in the world to recognize that has not been working."
While funding abstinence education abroad, the White House is proposing to cut $4 million from the CDC's HIV and AIDS, STD and tuberculosis-prevention program, according to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, an advocacy organization that promotes sexual education.
The White House also supported Congress' appropriation of nearly $170 million in federal funds for abstinence-only education for students in the United States. By law the programs funded cannot discuss the role condoms play in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Those programs came under fire last year by Democrats charging scientific inaccuracies. Senate Majority Leader and physician Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., asked to defend the programs on ABC News in December, said they merit review and that the government has an interest in providing accurate information about public health challenges, including AIDS, the flu and condoms.
Frist also said, "We know that there's about a 15-percent failure rate" with condoms.
Used correctly -- which requires user education -- the CDC states the failure rate is between 2 and 3 percent.
The CDC has also taken steps in the last two years to de-emphasize condom use, embracing instead an approach to HIV prevention that focuses first on abstinence and monogamy.
In December 2002, the CDC removed from its Web site instructions on how to properly use condoms and data from studies showing that making condoms available to young people does not result in their having sex at an earlier ages, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The new fact sheet also emphasizes condoms' limitations.
"No protective method is 100 percent effective, and condom use cannot guarantee absolute protection against any STD," it reads. An earlier version said abstinence was the only guaranteed way to prevent HIV and STD infections but using condoms was "highly effective" at protection.
In June 2004, CDC issued new draft guidelines to organizations that are seeking federal grants and provide HIV counseling and sexual education that require groups to discuss condoms' "lack of effectiveness."
Official CDC policy holds that the "best choice is abstinence and mutual monogamy, but correctly used condoms are highly effective against HIV," said spokeswoman Jessica Frickey.
Another CDC official who works on HIV issues told United Press International Wednesday that the Navy policy and the White House policy on condoms appeared to be "mutually exclusive."
It is a clash between competing interests. For both moral and political reasons, the White House seeks to publicly discourage casual sex which it links to condom use. The Navy, seeking to protect the health and readiness of the fleet, skews toward the practical.
The Navy material does highlight abstinence and mutual monogamy as the only guaranteed method of prevention, but it endorses condom use -- a reflection of the reality of its experiences, a Navy official told UPI.
SHARP also provides a Power Point presentation for chaplains to use, encouraging abstinence, especially during shore leave.
A 1991 survey of 1,700 sailors and Marines on a six-month deployment showed 42 percent had contact with prostitutes and had a new sexually transmitted disease infection rate of 10 percent. But the contraction of STDs does not just occur in exotic ports of call from sex workers.
Most infections -- 97 percent in the Atlantic Fleet in a 1998 study -- are acquired in the United States.
The Navy has promoted "targeted" condom access for decades as a way to prevent disease and pregnancy, findings borne out by a 2001 study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health that determined latex rubber condoms were effective against both.
SHARP's "condom access" document offered to commanders cites scientific studies that show making condoms available does not encourage sexual activity or hasten its onset.
"Making condoms easy to get at strategic times and places may increase the likelihood that people who choose to have sex will do so with a condom rather than without a condom," the March 2005 document states.
Availability of condoms may be key. A 2003 survey showed that 31 percent of enlisted male sailors said if no birth control is available, they just take a chance and hope that pregnancy does not occur; 15 percent of female sailors responded the same way. It says commanders should consider buying condoms in bulk and pay for them from the same account used to buy earplugs for protection against loud noises.
People who have access to free condoms are more likely to use them than people who pay as little as 25 cents per condom according to a 1999 study.
"Access to free condoms is an effective public health strategy," the report states.
Free condoms do not suggest the commander is promoting sexual activity, according to SHARP.
"Just as easy access to earplugs does not imply that people should expose themselves to loud noise, condom access does not imply people should have sex. By making access to earplugs and condoms easy, it is implied that safety is desired and expected," the report states.
Comparable documents from the other services' health agencies were not available at press time.
source: http://www.aegis.com/news/upi/2005/UP050405.html
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Hookers & Haulers - research indicates truck drivers are spreading HIV - Brief Article
Discover, May, 2000 by Josie Glausiusz
Dale Stratford likes to hang out at truck stops, but all in the cause of science. Stratford, a medical anthropologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, has just concluded the first study of sexual behavior among American truckers. Research in Africa and India has shown that long-haul truck drivers may play a significant role in spreading HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Until now, nobody had explored the problem in the United States.
Over nine months, Stratford and her team interviewed 71 male drivers at four Florida truck stops. Nearly one third of them admitted to frequent on-the-road sex with prostitutes, and few ever used condoms. Many of the prostitutes solicited sex to obtain money for injectable drugs, a risk factor for AIDS if needles are shared. Truckers also admitted drug use, mostly methamphetamine, cocaine, and alcohol. And most of the drivers Stratford questioned were misinformed about AIDS. Some thought it a disease unique to gay men; others were convinced that condoms offered no protection.
"We know that truckers who engage in unprotected sex are at increased risk for AIDS. Now is the time to set up prevention activities," Stratford says. She proposes establishing clinics to test, treat, and educate truckers about all manner of health risks, including HIV.
source: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_5_21/ai_61692472
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The Truth About Steroids
Steroid abuse is still on the rise, and not just among professional athletes and bodybuilders.
Despite numerous educational efforts by health care officials, many amateur and high school athletes looking for that elusive competitive edge still believe they can get it from a syringe or a bottle of pills. What they don't realize is that steroids will give them a lot more than they bargained for.
Not worth the risk
Acne. Liver damage. Increased risk of heart disease. These are just a few of the side effects associated with anabolic steroid abuse. And there's more.
The side effects are severe. Men who use steroids also may develop gynecomastia (the development of breasts), priapism (painful prolonged erection) and edema from sodium and water retention. They also will be more prone to cardiovascular problems since steroids decrease high-density lipoprotein levels (HDL) or ''good'' cholesterol, and increase low-density lipoprotein levels (LDL) or ''bad'' cholesterol.
Coupled with hypertension and negative changes in myocardial tissue, steroids users are at an increased risk for heart attack as well.
Of additional concern are alterations in psyche and behavior (i.e., aggression, physical dependence) and decreased immune function. Changes in the reproductive system, such as a reduction in testicle size, sperm count and mobility, and a decrease in the levels of endogenous testosterone and other sex hormones are common.
Women at risk
Unlike men, whose side effects may be reversible once the abuse has stopped, women experience irreversible changes, such as a deepened voice, increased facial and body hair growth, enlarged clitoris and coarser skin. In addition, irregularities in, or cessation of menstrual cycle, increased libido, aggressiveness, acne and decreased immune function may occur.
Women are also prone to the cardiovascular risks and changes in psyche and behavior that men experience.
All risk, no glory
There is an even scarier risk of steroid abuse: death. Steroid users who share needles are putting themselves at risk for developing infections such as HIV, hepatitis or other viral diseases.
The terminal risks of steroid abuse are not fully known. Some published cases of tumors and other cancers related to steroid abuse have been reported. Even so, physicians and researchers do not know all the repercussions of steroid abuse on one's body and future health.
Controlled research is unethical and only information from abusers is usable; yet this data may be inaccurate since most users are not forthcoming about the full extent of their steroid use.
Since the late 1980s, the federal government has begun to crack down on steroid use and distribution. Possession of steroids with intent to distribute without a valid prescription is a felony and subject to prosecution. Likewise, steroid use is a violation of the rules of virtually all sports leagues and councils as well as the traditional ethics of good sportsmanship.
No substitute for training
What most steroid users don't realize is that they are placing themselves at risk for something they could achieve on their own. Many experts agree that the effects of steroids on strength and muscle mass of beginning weight lifters or athletes are minimal when compared with the effects of an intensive weight-training or conditioning program.
The best way to improve performance and increase muscle mass is to follow a well-designed program that challenges both your body and your mind. No drug can do that for you.
source: http://www.acefitness.org/fitfacts/fitfacts_display.aspx?itemid=49
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Note from Steve Harris, I recommend the following sites as they directly relate to Brownwood and The Big Country !
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Do you think the US Goverment will ever take responsibility for
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