[Viva] Fwd: HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma - News - Times Colonist

Sun Aug 25 20:15:02 PDT 2013

While I think this is a great article, I do not like this paragraph:

The fair-haired, fit-looking woman is a divorced mother with two healthy
children, holds a good job and owns her home. She is a heterosexual woman
who had none of traditional risk factors for HIV, such as intravenous-drug
use or promiscuity, when she was diagnosed.

Since when has "promiscuity" been one of the traditional risk factors for a
heterosexual woman?  I would think that a traditional risk factor was
having sex, not necessarily promiscuity!!!!

Denise

On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Margarite Sanchez <
margaritesanchez at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you haven't come across this article yet ...
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Roy Parish <royparish at shaw.ca>
> Date: Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 9:10 AM
> Subject: HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma - News -
> Times Colonist
> To: Margarite Sanchez <margaritesanchez at gmail.com>
>
>
> Hello Margi
> Hope all is well with you and Alvaro.
> Spotted this on FB and thought you, of all the friends I know, would
> relate.
>  Luv
> R
> xo
> 29c today in Vancouver. Fantabulosa, bring it on. I bet your 'girls' are
> thriving.
>
> http://www.timescolonist.com/news/hiv-aids-series-island-woman-s-life-marked-by-stigma-1.571638
>
> HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma
> [image: A3-0807-hiv-clr.jpg]
> Nicole, now 30, was diagnosed with HIV at 21. Although she would like to
> help combat the stigma attached to HIV, she keeps her illness a secret from
> many in her life.  Photograph by: DARREN STONE, Times Colonist
>
> At age 30, Nicole could be a poster woman for good looks and good health —
> except for one issue she feels compelled to keep secret.
>
> While her family and close friends know, she is very careful about telling
> others that, at age 21, she was diagnosed with HIV.
>
> The fair-haired, fit-looking woman is a divorced mother with two healthy
> children, holds a good job and owns her home. She is a heterosexual woman
> who had none of traditional risk factors for HIV, such as intravenous-drug
> use or promiscuity, when she was diagnosed.
>
> She’d love to let us use her last name to help lambaste the deep stigmas
> that still exist about HIV, the lack of knowledge about how controllable it
> is and how hard it would be for women like her to transmit the virus. But
> as the sole support of her family and with a boss who has no idea of her
> status, she just can’t risk it.
>
> Nicole is deeply disturbed by the ungrounded belief in easy transmission
> that is still widespread in society. Even some close friends aren’t keen on
> her borrowing a hairbrush, or sipping from the same glass.
>
> “Having this stigma is so anguishing,” she said. “It takes some of the
> quality from my life.”
>  Devastating diagnosis
>
> She has no idea whether the man who passed HIV to her had any idea he was
> infected. She found out as a result of routine blood work about 10 years
> ago. She was so devastated her family doctor had to drive her home. She was
> sick at the thought she might never be able to have kids or, worse, faced
> imminent death.
>
> Nicole managed to get on with her life. She met her husband, who was also
> HIV positive, online. Neither of their children has HIV.
>
> Now divorced, Nicole’s deepest wish is to find a partner, a father figure
> for her children and a husband unafraid to love her. She has experienced
> devastating setbacks on that score. She dated two men and, in each case,
> when the time seemed right, she worked up the courage to them about her
> status. She explained that experts in the field have assured her that there
> is almost no chance she can transmit HIV to others. But, within 24 hours,
> each man dropped contact with her.
>
> That made her feel “discardable,” she said.
>
> “My body has not been affected by [HIV], nor is it expected to. It’s
> actually expected to be unaffected for the rest of my life. But my spirit
> and my heart have been.”
>
> That’s why, she said, she wants to fight stigma around HIV.
>  New treatment, new hope
>
> The B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS also wants to get out the word
> that taking HAART — a landmark mixture of highly active anti-retroviral
> therapy — reduces the level of HIV in the blood and sexual fluids to
> undetectable levels, dramatically decreasing the likelihood of HIV
> transmission, said Kevin Hollett, the centre’s communications co-ordinator.
>
> HIV transmission by heterosexual contact accounted for about 22 per cent
> of the 238 new HIV cases in B.C. in 2012 — or about 52 new cases, down from
> 75 in 2011.
>
> That’s far less than the 63 per cent transmitted by men having unprotected
> sex with men, but nearly double the 12 per cent transmission rate via
> intravenous-drug use, according to figures from the B.C. Centre for Disease
> Control.
>
> There’s no reason for Nicole not to have a healthy sexual relationship
> without fear of transmitting HIV, said Dr. Julio Montaner, one of the
> world’s pre-eminent HIV/AIDS experts.
>
> Montaner, a professor of medicine at the University of B.C., said that
> thanks to HAART — a therapy that he helped develop — Nicole’s viral load is
> undetectable and, as such, it is not possible for her to transmit HIV to
> others.
>
> The virus that was often death sentence when Nicole was a child is now a
> chronic illness that can be well managed in many people.
>
> “Twenty years ago, a woman infected with HIV at age 20 would be told,
> ‘Sorry, you have a disease that is going to kill you prematurely, you’re
> going to have a very rocky course ahead, you are basically not going to
> have a normal reproductive life,’ ” Montaner said.
>
> “Today, a 20-year-old woman who comes to my office for the first time and
> has an HIV diagnosis, yes, it’s a problem, but we have a strategy. The
> treatments are highly effective, they are simple, they are formulated into
> one pill once a day, most of the time.”
>
> A 20-year-old woman diagnosed today with HIV and given anti-retroviral
> drugs can expect to live in good health until the age of 73, Montaner said.
> He’s hesitant to call it a normal life-span “because anything that requires
> treatment, by definition, is not normal. But I usually [say] near-normal
> longevity and a very high quality of life.”
>
> Twenty years ago, Montaner would have had to advise Nicole not to have
> children. Now he can say, “You will be there to nurture your children and
> you will be there to see your grandchildren.”
>
> Moreover, B.C. Women’s Hospital researchers have developed a drug regimen
> that has prevented births of any HIV-positive babies in B.C. in the last 15
> years to HIV-positive mothers who underwent a full anti-retroviral regime.
>  The toll of stigma
>
> Even though Nicole has a nice life by anyone’s standards — something that
> can’t be said of impoverished injection-drug users, for instance — the HIV
> stigma must take a toll on her well-being, said Katrina Jensen, executive
> director of AIDS Vancouver Island.
>
> “You can’t underestimate the impact that stigma and discrimination have on
> someone’s health … no matter how privileged they may seem. If they’re part
> of a group that experiences a lot of stigma, that is bad for their health,”
> Jensen said.
>
> As a woman in her childbearing years, Nicole only recently began to take
> medication — four pills a day. She continues to have routine blood work
> done to monitor her T-cell counts and viral load.
>
> “Now that I’m on medication, it is likely I will have undetectable viral
> load for the rest of my life,” she said.
>
> As her children grow up, Nicole doesn’t want them to feel there’s
> something wrong or shameful about their family. They’re too young to
> understand the implications of HIV. She regrets she can’t use her surname
> to defy the stigma and help normalize HIV. She’s got a mortgage to pay,
> kids to support, a job to do and a public image she doesn’t want to tarnish
> by untruths. She’s not willing to be “a sacrificial lamb,” but she wants
> people to remember her story when they hear about someone living with HIV.
>
> kdedyna at timescolonist.com
>  A look at the numbers
>
> • Number of people in Canada living with HIV, including those with AIDS,
> in 2011: 71,300
>
> • Number of people in Canada living with HIV, including those with AIDS,
> in 2008: 64,000
>
> • Number of people in B.C. living with HIV in 2011: 11,700
>
> • Number of people in B.C. with AIDS in 2011: 70
>
> • Number of people on Vancouver Island living with HIV in 2012: 888
>
> • Number of new HIV infections in Canada in 2011: 3,175
>
> • Number of new HIV infections in B.C. in 2012: 238
>
> • Number of new HIV diagnoses on Vancouver Island, from 2008 to 2012: 159
>
> • Rate of new HIV infections in Canada in 2011: 7.6 per 100,000 people
>
> • Rate of new HIV infections in B.C. in 2012: 5.2 per 100,000
>
> • Rate of new HIV infections on Vancouver Island, from 2008 to 2012: 4.2
> per 100,000
>
> • Rate of new HIV infections on Vancouver Island in 2012: 3.4 per 100,000
>
> • Percentage of cases in B.C. in 2012 in which HIV transmission caused by:
>
> - gay, bisexual contact: 63
>
> - heterosexual contact: 22
>
> - intravenous-drug use: 12
>
> • Annual cost of HAART anti-retroviral treatment: $15,600
>
> • Lifetime cost of HAART anti-retroviral treatment: $500,000
>
> • Number of HIV blood screens done on pregnant women in B.C. in 2011:
> 46,910
>
> • Number of HIV-positive babies born in last 15 years to mothers who
> underwent full anti-HIV drug therapy: 0
>
> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in B.C. in 2011: 59
>
> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in B.C. in 1996: 253
>
> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in Canada in 2009: 355
>
> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in Canada in 1995: 1,764
>
> *Sources: B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Statistics Canada,
> Vancouver Island Health Authority and B.C. Centre for Disease Control, B.C.
> Women’s Hospital & Health Centre Foundation*
>
> © Copyright 2013
>
>
>
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-- 
www.denise-becker.com
Queen's Gold Jubilee Medal
Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal
cell: 250-870-1714
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