HIV Laugh-able?

Rihanna has found a way to lighten the mood of those who suffer with HIV. Chris Rock makes jokes about HIV and AIDS does this make it okay? Honey there is other ways to lighten the mood of those who suffer with HIV other than making jokes about the disease itself. There is nothing funny about HIV. PERIOD. Rihanna has discovered a way to make HIV glamourous--interesting. No doubt she is a beauty, and a bit of a genius to put a new spin on the ugly face of such a horrible epidemic. And as for Chris Rock--well what can you say about him he will make jokes about anything that's his job. But jokes about AIDS I think thats a bit much.

Rihanna you are a smart cookie for finding a way to twist the HIV seriousness around into something funny. I don't think it's so cute, have you seen the latest stats for people who are infected with the disease? Here's a tip for you drop by the CDC website, and learn something.

HIV Conspiracy

Conspiracy beliefs about the origin of HIV and the role of the government in the AIDS epidemic are prevalent, particularly in the African American community. Klonoff and Landrine (1999) found in a random door-to-door survey of African Americans in California that 27% of African Americans endorsed the belief that “HIV/AIDS is a man-made virus that the federal government made to kill and wipe out black people”, and a further 23% were unsure. More recently, Bogart and Thorburn (2005) conducted a random telephone survey of African Americans living in the contiguous U.S. They found that “AIDS is a form of genocide against blacks”, (5-point Likert scale, strongly agree to strongly disagree) over 20% of men and 12% of women somewhat or strongly agreed; for the question “AIDS was produced in a government laboratory”, over 30% of men and 24% of women agreed. Both studies note the history of the Tuskegee syphilis study (Jones, 1993) and its potential role in generating mistrust of the government with regard to treatment and racial discrimination and disparities in the health care system.

These beliefs have potentially dangerous consequences for HIV prevention and AIDS treatment: Bogart and Thorburn note that HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs were significantly associated with negative condom attitudes and inconsistent condom use, and may represent a facet of negative attitudes toward condom use among black men.

Findings from a recent study on HIV vaccine acceptability among communities at risk suggest that conspiracy beliefs may be widespread and reflect substantial mistrust of the government and health care system among both African Americans and Latinos (Newman, et al, 2004). In this study, a higher percentage of Latinos expressed their mistrust of the government and physicians when compared to other ethnic groups. Approximately 55% of Latinos and 50% of African Americans, for instance, reported believing that the government secretly had an HIV vaccine. HIV vaccine acceptability, in addition, was lower for those who believed physicians experiment on people without consent (Latinos 38%, African Americans 25%, Whites 15%).

This recent study suggesting that both Latinos and African Americans report HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs indicates that a sole focus on the African American community may obscure the possibility that conspiracy theories may be common in other populations at risk. Indeed, if they are a facet of negative condom use attitudes, they might be expected to occur in other racial and ethnic populations. We analyzed data from a study in which HIV/AIDS conspiracy beliefs were investigated in order to determine (1) their distribution in other racial/ethnic groups, and (2) their relationship to reported condom use.

HIV Vaccines

On Tuesday, researchers at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston presented updates on the quest for an AIDS vaccine.

Further analysis of data from the trial of a Merck AIDS vaccine candidate, which was stopped last fall once it proved ineffective, showed uncircumcised male vaccine recipients had nearly four times the HIV infection risk of those given a placebo, said lead investigator Dr. Susan Buchbinder. The vaccine may have activated white blood cells near the surface of the foreskin, a known target of HIV, possibly making uncircumcised volunteers more vulnerable, she said.

However, Buchbinder does not recommend that uncircumcised volunteers who received the vaccine be circumcised as a precaution. While the slightly increased risk of infection among vaccine recipients is continuing, even the numbers among those who are uncircumcised is so small it could be purely the result of chance.

In another presentation, the 3,000 attendees were told the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has “lost its way” and that current HIV/AIDS vaccine trials are dead ends. “There is no rational basis for believing that any of the products in the pipeline have any reasonable hope of being effective,” said Ronald Desrosiers, director of the New England Regional Primate Research Center.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, disagreed with Desrosiers’ bleak assessment, though he acknowledged scientists have much more to learn about the biological steps necessary for the immune system to effectively fight the virus.

Fauci announced a March 25 meeting in Bethesda, Md., where vaccine research leaders will plan strategy and consider new areas where federal assistance can be channeled.

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