The fifth Week

The Fifth Week :)


Did You Know?

There is a case going on going on currently where a man with HIV is suing feds for throwing his confidentiality out the window and disclosing his HIV status (Egelko, 2010)?? According to an article from the San Francisco Chronicle, he was a pilot who discovered his positive HIV status in 1985. He chose to give up his pilot license, because the FAA had a law that “banned anyone with the AIDS virus from flying a plane.” When I read that it blew my mind. Of course I do understand that there are risks with someone who has AIDS to fly a plane. They could become sick while flying due to their weak immune system, but at the same time shouldn’t they evaluate each case individually? In 1994 the man reapplied for his license, but he made the decision not to disclose his condition. By 1995 his health was deteriorating and decided to apply for his social security benefits (Egelko, 2010). This is where the issue starts to flourish. The pilot regained his health and reapplied for his license in 1998 and stopped his benefits. At this time the FAA had removed the ban on HIV positive pilots. By 2005 the FAA started an investigation on fraudulent social security and, because the pilot disclosed false information about his medical records he was given a $1,000 fine, which he paid. By 2006 his license was restored, but sure enough after being charged for this crime there was reporter on his door step that was using him as an example of ‘lying pilots’ (Egelko, 2010). At that point it became clear that they had disclosed his HIV status and violated his confidentiality. So that battle continues with this man trying to get his dignity back and compensation from Federal Aviation Administration.


Week number 5!!

So much is going on with this class it almost makes my head spin. At the same time I am actually learning things. Before this class I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the difference between HIV and AIDS. I know that sounds sad, but it makes me that much more proud at the amount of information that is being given in this class. Not only is there plenty of information, but it is given in a form that I can remember it and have it stick with me. I’ve discovered that my favorite assignments in this class are the QOTW postings. I love the questions that we have to answer, it makes me think and learn more about myself and how I would react in different situations.


Remember how I told you guys I was so motivated to do something with the HIV/AIDS community?? Well I was doing some research and I discovered that there is a walk for AIDS in Orlando and I think that it is something I would like to do. Here is the website that I found it on if anyone else is interested http://www.aidswalkorlando.org/volunteers. I think I am going to have my girlfriend and my roommate come with me. This is something small that I can do to help, which is exactly how I wanted to start.






I hope all of you are doing well and are growing during this class!


References:

Egelko, B. (2010, February 23). S.F. man can sue feds for revealing HIV status. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from SFGate: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/23/BAPH1C5D0J.DTL

And so it continues

Did you know?

Most gay men that are HIV positive don’t regret disclosing that they are HIV positive. I was reading an article about a study that was done on men. Some of the participants completely identified as gay, but there were some that said they only had sex with men (Hitti, 2006). This article explained that the average age of the participant was 38 and the men were interviewed every year from 19989-2000. At the end of the study it was concluded that there was a total of 80% of the social networks of the participants who knew they were HIV positive and there was only 4.2% regret status. I thought this was an interesting study, because it made me wonder why people choose not to disclose their status. I was trying to find an article about how many people choose to disclose their status but I was not able to find what I was looking for so if any of you have a source I would love to see it :). I feel that if HIV status was disclosed more often, then it would be less of a big deal and there would be even more awareness. People wouldn’t be as scared of what others might think if they are tested.

Week cuatro!

Ok so this past week I have finished my At Risk book and I was actually very disappointed in the ending. I guess I was expecting more closure. Overall I enjoyed reading the book and it made me analyze my life. Do I treat the unknown with fear like the parents did about HIV? Because I read the book I am now looking at life a little different and I am going to finish of the rest of the books that I bought for the class, because I know that with each page I’ll learn something new.

With this week’s QOTW we were asked to interview 3 people about HIV. One of the people I interviewed was my grandma. She is in her 80’s and lives in Tennessee. When I interviewed her, I asked if she felt that HIV positive people had a negative stigma. Her response made me sick. She stated “Hell yes, and they deserve it!” I wanted to cry, because with everything that I have learned in this class and through life, I know that this is not the case. Needless to say I spent over an hour on the phone with her giving her information from our Module 1 slides, and letting her know that the way she is thinking is contributing to hate crimes and sadness in our country. Over all I know that I didn’t completely change her thoughts on HIV and AIDS, but I know I made a difference and she is not as ready to say that “all people who have HIV were promiscuous and deserve God’s punishment.”

I plan on calling her more often to let her know what we are learning in this class and I have somewhat made her my project. I want her to see that there are so many ways that HIV can be contracted and that it isn’t just people that sleep around and have unprotected sex. I shined some light on the fact that it can be a married man that had an affair and had unprotected sex with his trusting wife, who will in turn catch the virus. She agreed with me that not everyone deserved it and I hope she continues to listen to what I have to say :).


References:


Hitti, M. (2006, May 8). Disclosing HIV Status Without Regrets. Retrieved February 17, 2010, from WebMD Health News: http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/guide/20061101/disclosing-hiv-status-without-regrets

Week 3..and the adventure continues!

Did you know?

There is a man in Canada being tried for manslaughter because he didn’t tell his many sexual partners that he was HIV positive (Mark Cichocki, 2009). With all of this occurring 2 of the women that he infected have died from AIDS complications and, because of these issues the Royal Canadian Mounted Police felt the need to post a picture and name of the man to the public. RCMP feels that it is a public safety issue (Mark Cichocki, 2009). The debate that is going on is whether or not it was okay for the police to disclose who the man is. This is something that is HUGE! What is going to happen for future cases like this? Are there exceptions to confidentiality? With reading this article it raised a lot of questions for me. I feel that there shouldn’t be exceptions to confidentiality. These police disclosed information before the case was closed and a verdict was reached. I totally understand that there are other people involved and they need to be protected, but shouldn’t other people be held responsible? Don’t they need to be the ones that protect themselves and demand protection during intercourse? I think they should. There a bunch of pros and cons to disclosing this man’s HIV status, but until he was found guilty of these charges, I don’t believe an exception should have been made to confidentiality.

Week 3 :)

So it is week 3 of my adventure of my HIV class at UCF and I’m still discovering new things every day. Just 10 minutes ago I finished an assignment that required me to think of what I would do in the event that I needed a blood transfusion with possible HIV positive blood. This situation required that I be on a vacation and that nearest United States blood was 20 hours away and my life depended on getting this blood so I could have surgery due to internal injuries from a dramatic fall. After reading the assignment my mind became a whirlwind of thoughts. Do I die from blood loss and complications or do I chance it and live another day? Ultimately I chose to have the transfusion and possibly contract HIV. My main reason for deciding to have the transfusion was so that I could see my family again and that the medicine in the United States is strong enough to where I could have a chance at a somewhat decent life with HIV.

At this stage in the class I am feeling motivated to make a difference with HIV. I feel like I should be volunteering my time with issues dealing with HIV. I’m going to try and look further into this, if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear about them!!

Today I will start reading At Risk, a book for this course regarding a younger girl that has HIV. I am extremely excited to read this book and I think that it will further motivate me on sharing knowledge and volunteering for awareness with HIV. I’m hoping that this motivation doesn’t fall away, I like it and I’m excited to see where it will take me. :)

Works Cited

Mark Cichocki, R. (2009, May 1). Public Disclosure of HIV Status: Public Safety or Breach of Confidentiality? Retrieved Feburary 10, 2010, from About.com: http://aids.about.com/od/legalissues/i/disclosure.htm

Totem, T. (2008, June 16). benettontalk. Retrieved Feburary 10, 2010, from http://www.benettontalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/know-your-hiv-status_jonrawlinson.jpg

Week number 2!!!

Did You Know?

Currently there are many issues with whether a person should have to disclose their HIV status. One area that drew some attention from me was the issue of roommates disclosing their HIV status with each other. I came across an article on the New York Times website and it discussed how the author doesn’t feel that a person should need to disclose their HIV status with a roommate. One of the issues that he was mentioning was an HIV positive roommate should take extra precaution with their roommates and that would prevent mishaps. With this subject I believe that there should be different circumstances that can contribute to whether a person should disclose their status. For example me and my roommate are extremely close and share a bathroom, which means that we could accidentally use a razor or a toothbrush. Because we have close contact I would expect her to tell me something as serious as their HIV status. Now if roommates simply live together and there is no way of having bodily fluids swapped, then there shouldn’t be a need for them to disclose their status to each other. As you all can see disclosing a person’s status can be difficult and should be taken seriously.

HIV week 2!
This week I started on module 1. With this module I dug deeper into what pandemic, epidemic, and endemic really mean. Before I started I had a general idea about these terms, but I couldn’t differentiate between them. I used the Merriam-Webster online dictionary to help me define the terms. After researching the terms it became clear how they were different from each other. It also allowed me to understand that HIV is a pandemic, because it affects a large amount of people around the world and not just in one specific area. I was also instructed to find the prevalence of HIV in different countries and states. This opened my eyes. How could one virus affect so many people? And on top of that how can people still leave themselves vulnerable to this virus? Don’t they hear about it, see it, or care about it? Of course this doesn’t mean that everyone was just ignorant and contracted HIV, I mean that HIV is so huge, how can anyone not have every guard they can have up? Since I have started this module it has made me aware just how prevalent this issue is in our world. We need to inform anyone and everyone about this virus and how they can protect themselves and others.

In addition to blogging about this week’s events, I was supposed to look at AIDS organizations outside of the United States. I chose to look into an organization named AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific or ASAP. This is a non governmental body of HIV and AIDS organizations. The main focus is to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS throughout Asia and the Pacific. They want people to talk about the issues with HIV/AIDS and promote awareness. ASAP also works with regional sectors in Asia and the Pacific to help advocacy efforts. Even though they are independent from the government, they will work along side them to help the cause.

http://www.aidssocietyap.org/