Reflection on this term

I did learn what I expected to learn in this class but a little more than what I thought I would.  Some of the social issues of STI's were new to me since most health classes that I have taken do not teach that aspect of the disease.  The most useful part of this class was learning about the issues in Africa and learning more about the reason of why stuff is the way it is with Aids.  Before this class I have heard about that Aids was really bad in Africa but I didn't know all the factors and especially the one that were about society in general.  I don't think that anything in the class that was not useful.  If I knew about, it just served as a review.  I do think that it is important for this class be taught at the university level.  Through our research in our anthology that many college students really don't know about STI's.  This class is perfect for those students who really don't know much about the subject.  The point of view that is taken for this class I think will help anyone in college to be more aware and have a better view of our world.

Guest Aids Lecturer

1.  The biggest thing that stuck out to me from the lecturer was the amount of medication that an Aids patient has to take.  I didn't know that it was such a huge quantity of pills and tablets.  The daily life is a lot more stressful I  think because you have to watch out for many things.  The diet and exercising has to be more strict for a person to stay alive and be healthy more than a non-Aids person.  

2.  Bob's experience with Aids is probably very different from those Aids patients around the world.  He fits the old stereotype that was here in the US of Aids patients being gay and sexually promiscuous.  That stereotype doesn't really describe HIV positive people around the world.  It is actually more of a half and half situation between in HIV positive men and women.  Places such as Sub-Saharan Africa, the rising group of HIV positive people are heterosexual women being infected by their husband.

Similarities that Bob might have with the rest of the world might be the daily struggle of trying to stay healthy to keep there immune system in check as much as they can.  He probably has to deal with the stigma of Aids just like everyone around the world.  The stigma of the disease has not fully gone away even here in America let alone in poverty stricken places around the world.

3.  The route of transmission that Bob talked about was the one between women that were faithful to their husbands and being infected by them.  Social factors that hinder prevention efforts is the patriarchal society that is prevalent in these areas.  Women are not suppose to challenge the authority of their husbands.  If a women were to ask her husband to use a condom she would be beaten because she would be considered a slut.  If she asks for the condom that means she is sleeping around even if the husband is the one being promiscuous.

4. Living in a rural area with Aids is very hard.  Access to healthcare is most likely not great and if it is available, it is probably very far away.  Money is most likely not sufficient so affording treatment is not possible.  There isn't a lot of awareness of the disease because the educational system is not in place.  The lack of education is makes people stigmatizing the disease more by not know much about it and it might make it hard for infected people to seek out treatment.

Theories of HIV Crossing to Humans

The two theories I'm going to compare is the 'Hunter' theory and the conspiracy theory.  There are huge differences in these two theories.  The hunter theory says that HIV came from chimps that had SIV which is similar to HIV. HIV is a new virus that evolved from the SIV.  The transfer came from Hunters in Africa that hunted these chimps and got infected by having the chimps blood infect the hunters via a wound or small cut.

The conspiracy theory is nothing like the hunter theory.  The conspiracy theory thinks that the US government made the virus as a  biochemical weapon to kill African American and homosexuals.  This different from the hunter theory in that it doesn't even take into account SIV even though HIV and SIV are genetically very similar hinting that they have a common ancestor in the near past.  

The hunter theory seems the most plausible to me.  It seems the most likely and it has genetics to back it up.  

The only reason I think it is important to see how HIV got transferred to humans are medical.  It might help to find treatments and drugs to combat the virus if everything is learned about the virus.  As for to address the disease today I really don't see much importance to it.  However it happen it did and we must look at a solution to the problem.  

White Privilege

The article of white privilege was interesting.  I agree with a great majority of it.  Racism has never been really taught or described as a certain group of people of having privileges.  Its true that people think that it only about individuals being rude or mean to other people because of race. One point I agree with specifically is that as a white person, the person doesn't have to speak for their whole culture.  I see that in a lot when ever a minority does something great. They alway talk about how they are representing their culture or being the first.  White people never have to be labeled in such ways.  I really don't disagree with anything.  It everything has roots in truth even thought they are a little over generalized.

Privilege plays a role in the spread and prevention of Aids/HIV in heterosexual privilege.  As a heterosexual, I have many privileges.  I'm looked as normal and not an at risk person of having Aids.  I can give blood and not be denied by institutions such as the red cross.  

The privilege of white power I also receive just by being an American.  I have the resources and education to control Aids.  Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa don't have that because they have been exploited by "white countries" during the colonial period.  That has facilitated Aids to spread and to not be controlled.

As a society, we need to look at these problems from a global scale.  Sexual health is one of those issues that needs to be looked at from the bigger perspective that some groups of people are privileged over others.

Aids/HIV Knowledge

I know that HIV is a virus that causes Aids. HIV is a virus that attacks our immune by entering our T-Cells and using them to replicate and then destroy the cell. After a while, most of these cells die make the body immune system week and vulnerable to almost anything that can get us sick. At this stage it is known as Aids because the effects of the virus can be seen. Infection is very easy to obtain and the body inability to fight of infection causes the person to die. The virus can be transmitted sexually or by exchange of blood from person to person. I know that it can be prevented through the use of condoms and of not mixing blood. There are also drugs that helps with making Aids patients live longer. These drugs are super expensive. I work at a pharmacy and I've seen some drugs run for over a thousand dollars without insurance.

I accumulated this information through out the years. They came mostly from school in the health classes. My first exposure to Aids was in 5th grade. We had a teacher that was very passionate about teaching the subject. Throughout the years I have gotten more and more in depth information.

I want to learn more about what new methods are being developing to prevent Aids. New drugs or treatments and how they are being used at a global scale also interest me and I want to learn more them.

What has already surprised me is the theories of how Aids started. For some reason, I have never come across that sort of information. The video on Wednesday presented information on how the disease could have come from chimps and that it got transfer to humuns by the hunting of these chimps in central Africa. The video was very graphic on the footage of the dead chimps that hunted. A butcher or some hunter got infected with a strand of the virus that was adapted enough to get transfered to humans. I didn't know that the virus had existed in chimps for quite some time but the transfer to humans was only sometime in the 1930's.

Global Disparities in STI

Global disparities in STI has a great deal to do with classism. The poor seem to be at a disadvantage with STI's and the rich don't seem to have as great a problem with it.  If the whole world is taken into account, it can be broken up into three classes.  First, second and third world countries.  The same can be done with our country in lower, middle and upper class.  The slides in class with the maps showing the prevalence of STI in different parts of the world presented information to support that classism effects STI prevalence around the world.  The third world countries had much more prevalence than those first world countries.  Areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia were the most effected.

The reason for this can be because of lack of resources and education.  People in these countries don't know about the diseases because the education system is not there to support them in an efficient way.  They don't know the symptoms of the diseases and how to prevent them.  This facilitates the rapid spread of the disease.  They unknowingly go with their normal business not knowing that they are spreading disease. Even if they do know how to prevent or cure STI's, these people may not have the resources to obtain medication or condoms to prevent the disease.

I think my USA perspective on STI's is different than those around the world.  Our education system fairly good in that we have health classes so that we know about STI's.  If we don't know, we can easily go to a doctor to get checked out.  In other parts of the world, that is not so easy.  The availability of medication is also easy because I can go to a pharmacy and have a prescription filled.  The availability of condoms is really easy.  I was actually surprised on how easy anyone can get condoms here on campus.  Prevention is not really an issue.  My look on STI's is that it preventable and some cases treatable.  I don't have to worry too much because I'm aware of it.  In other countries it is different.  People might not know about STI's or if they do, they are scared because they know they might not be able to do anything about it.

I do think that these same causes of disease even happen here in the USA.  Lower classes might not have the education about STI's and the resources to cure or prevent them.  I know of people who might not even go to the doctor because they can't afford it and they rather tough it out.  This is not STI's but general heath problems.  When it gets too bad or feel they are going to die, they seek help but it might be to late to save them or too expensive.

Classism has a great effect on the spread of disease and our look on them.  In poor populations it seems that disease spread fast while in better off population the problems doesn't seem as bad.  

Here is the link to the video I found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iLTfG75s6g

The commercial was about daily valtrex.  This is a medication used help the herpes patients.  Accurate information was given in the commercial.  They actually have to by law since they can't do false advertisement.   They said that herpes is not curable and that even thought there isn't any symptoms that it is still possible to spread herpes.  They gave stats on how people get herpes and that the drug doesn't cure herpes.

The message of this commercial was that of hope of living a normal life with herpes.  They made it sound that its okay that some can have herpes and that they just have to live with it. There wasn't anything about any preventative measures.  The main reason for this is because the target audience people who already have herpes.  This form of advertising I think is great because it is easy to reach the masses.   It gives the company good chance of reaching their target audience in the comfort of their own home.

I think that media and general advertising can have a huge role in the prevention of STI's.  They have a great record of promoting other things such as violence and consumer goods.  This kind of promotion of prevention of STI's would be easy and effective.  The role the media could take is that of creating awareness of STI's and of methods to preventing them through commercials.  Non-profits groups already do this sort of stuff such as the foundation for a better a life.  This could be a great way of preventing STI's.

Clinton's Apology

The tusksegee study was a study done by the public health service of the United States.  It was to study the natural history of syphilis in males.  It was racist and very unethical.  The men of the study were all poor black sharecroppers.  They were not informed of what the government was doing.  They were thought that the government had them in a program to help them with free clinics and things of that sort.  The men that had syphilis were studied until death.  Penicillin was found early in the study but the men did not receive treatment even though it was available.  The last from the early thirties to until 1971 when the story broke out.

Former President Clinton made an official apology in 1997.  It was done at the white house in a public event.  Some of the survivors and their family was there for the event.  Clinton talked about the study and gave a fairly good apology.  He then went into some goals of getting the trust of the African American community and making sure that a incident such as the this one would never happen again.

Some of the steps for the goals was the apology, grant money for Tuskegee to make a center for bioethics and health care, and by increasing regulations on medical research.

This apology is a good step for the government to reach out to the African American community.  It shows that the government admits to being at fault which is good.  In the video we saw in class, some of the doctors and people involved in running the study didn't see anything wrong with the study after so many years.  This so bad because the study was so racist and unethical.

The topic of the presidency brings me to the inauguration of Obama. I think it will have a big impact on the African American community.  I believe that there will be more trust in the system of our government seeing that the president of the United States is African American.  People we'll see that it is possible to for any person of any walk of life can achieve great things in this country if only one tries.

MDR TB

The main topic of this pod cast was about tuberculosis.  More specific is the multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) that is more threatening.  This is tuberculosis that resistant Rifampin and Isoniazid which are the normal drugs used to treat tuberculosis.  The MDR TB is treated with more expensive and more toxic drugs. It also takes up to two years to treat.

 The interview shed light that MDR TB is becoming more of a problem around the world.  There was a cases of people in the US coming down with it because of refugees from Thailand bringing it here to the US.  This should cause some fear because it there is out break of this disease, many people could die.  This disease could keep evolving and becoming more resistant to the drugs available to us.  If it ever becomes resistant to everything we have, then a global pandemic could result.  We should be worried because we cannot regulate the whole worlds healthcare system.  MDR TB results from missed diagnosis and improper treatment.  The world is also getting smaller as the traveling is made so easy.  The transfer of this disease could be easily done around world.  

I think that this issue has also effected other diseases.  Any disease that is treated with antibiotics has a similar situation that MDR TB has.  The drugs used to treat always have the chance of not having an effect because of bacteria evolving to resist the drug.  I believe that treatment and management of it will be similar to that of MDR TB.  Here in the US, law regarding antibiotics is more stringent.  I think that they are all by prescription only.  This gives the system more control over this situation.  The same problem still exist though.  teh US does not control the other health care systems in place around the world.  In Mexico, penicillin is available as over the counter.  Even "Mexican stores" here in the US sell them illegally. 

Diseases such MDR TB and similar one will have to approach this problem together.  It is important because if not, many lives could be at stake.  As the world becomes smaller, a problem in one part of the world will effect us even here in the states.