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

Wed Sep 4 23:40:18 PDT 2013

Hi Char!  Why disagree with Denise?  Just curious.

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 8:13 PM, Romari <romariundi at gmail.com> wrote:

> great idea  good exposure but we should handle it well and not simply out
> of disgust :)
>
> Romari
>
> On Sep 4, 2013, at 6:53 PM, CHARLENE ANDERSON <pickles4 at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> > I totally agree with Denise on this one.
> > Char
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Denise Becker" <dbecker106 at gmail.com>
> > To: "viva" <viva at lists.resist.ca>
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 8:57:01 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Viva] HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by
> stigma - News - Times Colonist
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The executive may want to consider writing this reply if there is no
> objection from anyone.  It would be good to have it come from ViVA and get
> our name out there as a group of positive women who can be contacted for an
> interview.
> > D
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 8:18 AM, anne bonner < thewoodbuffalo at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Um er let me think about it.  When did this article come out?  Does it
> have to be written right away?  I'm not so good at these things...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Romari < romariundi at gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > That is a good idea Anne … are you up for it?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Aug 27, 2013, at 10:37 AM, anne bonner < thewoodbuffalo at gmail.com >
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Also agreed.  Does anyone feel like writing a letter to the editor?
>  That would be a great venue to clear this issue up.     Because if they
> are going to continue writing articles about HIV they need to learn some
> sensitivity about the issue.
> >
> > Anne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Margarite Sanchez <
> margaritesanchez at gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Agreed! It is the old puritanical ethics showing ... and that kind of
> language implies that some people with HIV are guilty and others are
> innocent.  M
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Romari < romariundi at gmail.com > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Thank you Denise for bringing this article to my attention.
> >
> >
> > I don't get the Times Colonist but after reading this, I recalled
> someone mentioned to me that they too had read something about HIV in the
> aboriginal community recently. I have now done a search and there has been
> a whole series on HIV in the Times Colonist! It is great that they are
> giving it this much attention and from several angles.
> >
> >
> > However, I agree with your point about promiscuity! So very irritating
> that they can write these articles to inform people and hope to reduce
> stigma and yet mess up there!
> >
> >
> > Romari
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Aug 25, 2013, at 8:15 PM, Denise Becker < dbecker106 at gmail.com >
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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
> >
> > 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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> > --
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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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