#HIV Adolescence

[timbarrus]

Take notes. I was a teacher to adolescents with HIV. All of them arrived with a long list of medications. Every school district creates rules like a nurse has to administer all meds, and if students are caught taking their own meds, they were expelled. No drugs. Was a fundamental paradigm mainly because we have no idea what to do with sexually active adolescents, some addicted to opiates, and this was not where anything ends. It's the beginning. Methadone. The idea that people can use antiretrovirals and nothing else is a fantasy. It's going to be a cocktail. These are not the fun drugs. It's a soup of chemicals. All of them toxic. Suicide ideation connected these kids. There are reasons why some kids cannot handle medications at home. Abuse would be one. Your mother's boyfriend said you have to be punished by god. If you were gay, you were already being punished by god. It is now a life of punishment. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors were drugs the entire classroom was on, and these were kids, too, who just needed to talk. So talk we did. I Am Going To Kill Myself came up as a topic. Meds were next. After that, there was a lot of rage over the image that HIV clinics project of themselves versus armed cops walking hallways. When these kids see a cop, they leave. Some kids had twenty different medications. The mom's boyfriend throws all the meds down the toilet. They came to school drained. SRIs took too long. Sometimes suicide ideation became just suicide.

[reasonsforhope]

Here's the top 2 stories from each of Fix The News's six categories:

1. A game-changing HIV drug was the biggest story of 2024

In what Science called the 'breakthrough of the year', researchers revealed in June that a twice-yearly drug called lenacapavir reduced HIV infections in a trial in Africa to zero—an astonishing 100% efficacy, and the closest thing to a vaccine in four decades of research. Things moved quick; by October, the maker of the drug, Gilead, had agreed to produce an affordable version for 120 resource-limited countries, and by December trials were underway for a version that could prevent infection with just a single shot per year. 'I got cold shivers. After all our years of sadness, particularly over vaccines, this truly is surreal.'

2. Another incredible year for disease elimination

Jordan became the first country to eliminate leprosy, Chad eliminated sleeping sickness, Guinea eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus, Belize, Jamaica, and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, India achieved the WHO target for eliminating black fever, India, Viet Nam and Pakistan eliminated trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, and Brazil and Timor Leste eliminated elephantiasis.

15. The EU passed a landmark nature restoration law

When countries pass environmental legislation, it’s big news; when an entire continent mandates the protection of nature, it signals a profound shift. Under the new law, which passed on a knife-edge vote in June 2024, all 27 member states are legally required to restore at least 20% of land and sea by 2030, and degraded ecosystems by 2050. This is one of the world’s most ambitious pieces of legislation and it didn’t come easy; but the payoff will be huge - from tackling biodiversity loss and climate change to enhancing food security.

16. Deforestation in the Amazon halved in two years

Brazil’s space agency, INPE, confirmed a second consecutive year of declining deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. That means deforestation rates have roughly halved under Lula, and are now approaching all time lows. In Colombia, deforestation dropped by 36%, hitting a 23-year low. Bolivia created four new protected areas, a huge new new state park was created in Pará to protect some of the oldest and tallest tree species in the tropical Americas and a new study revealed that more of the Amazon is protected than we originally thought, with 62.4% of the rainforest now under some form of conservation management.

39. Millions more children got an education

Staggering statistics incoming: between 2000 and 2023, the number of children and adolescents not attending school fell by nearly 40%, and Eastern and Southern Africa, achieved gender parity in primary education, with 25 million more girls are enrolled in primary school today than in the early 2000s. Since 2015, an additional 110 million children have entered school worldwide, and 40 million more young people are completing secondary school.

40. We fed around a quarter of the world's kids at school

Around 480 million students are now getting fed at school, up from 319 million before the pandemic, and 104 countries have joined a global coalition to promote school meals, School feeding policies are now in place in 48 countries in Africa, and this year Nigeria announced plans to expand school meals to 20 million children by 2025, Kenya committed to expanding its program from two million to ten million children by the end of the decade, and Indonesia pledged to provide lunches to all 78 million of its students, in what will be the world's largest free school meals program.

50. Solar installations shattered all records

Global solar installations look set to reach an unprecedented 660GW in 2024, up 50% from 2023's previous record. The pace of deployment has become almost unfathomable - in 2010, it took a month to install a gigawatt, by 2016, a week, and in 2024, just 12 hours. Solar has become not just the cheapest form of new electricity in history, but the fastest-growing energy technology ever deployed, and the International Energy Agency said that the pace of deployment is now ahead of the trajectory required for net zero by 2050.  

51. Battery storage transformed the economics of renewables

Global battery storage capacity surged 76% in 2024, making investments in solar and wind energy much more attractive, and vice-versa. As with solar, the pace of change stunned even the most cynical observers. Price wars between the big Chinese manufacturers pushed battery costs to record lows, and global battery manufacturing capacity increased by 42%, setting the stage for future growth in both grid storage and electric vehicles - crucial for the clean flexibility required by a renewables-dominated electricity system. The world's first large-scale grid battery installation only went online seven years ago; by next year, global battery storage capacity will exceed that of pumped hydro.

65. Democracy proved remarkably resilient in a record year of elections

More than two billion people went to the polls this year, and democracy fared far better than most people expected, with solid voter turnout, limited election manipulation, and evidence of incumbent governments being tamed. It wasn't all good news, but Indonesia saw the world's biggest one day election, Indian voters rejected authoritarianism, South Korea's democratic institutions did the same, Bangladesh promised free and fair elections following a 'people's victory', Senegal, Sri Lanka and Botswana saw peaceful transfers of power to new leaders after decades of single party rule, and Syria saw the end of one of the world's most horrific authoritarian regimes.

66. Global leaders committed to ending violence against children

In early November, while the eyes of the world were on the US election, an event took place that may prove to be a far more consequential for humanity. Five countries pledged to end corporal punishment in all settings, two more pledged to end it in schools, and another 12, including Bangladesh and Nigeria, accepted recommendations earlier in the year to end corporal punishment of children in all settings. In total, in 2024 more than 100 countries made some kind of commitment to ending violence against children. Together, these countries are home to hundreds of millions of children, with the WHO calling the move a 'fundamental shift.'

73. Space exploration hit new milestones

NASA’s Europa Clipper began a 2.9 billion kilometre voyage to Jupiter to investigate a moon that may have conditions for life; astronomers identified an ice world with a possible atmosphere in the habitable zone; and the James Webb Telescope found the farthest known galaxy. Closer to Earth, China landed on the far side of the moon, the Polaris Dawn crew made a historic trip to orbit, and Starship moved closer to operational use – and maybe one day, to travel to Mars. 

74. Next-generation materials advanced

A mind-boggling year for material science. Artificial intelligence helped identify a solid-state electrolyte that could slash lithium use in batteries by 70%, and an Apple supplier announced a battery material that can deliver around 100 times better energy density. Researchers created an insulating synthetic sapphire material 1.25 nanometers thick, plus the world’s thinnest lens, just three atoms across. The world’s first functioning graphene-based semiconductor was unveiled (the long-awaited ‘wonder material’ may finally be coming of age!) and a team at Berkeley invented a fluffy yellow powder that could be a game changer for removing carbon from the atmosphere.

-via Fix The News, December 19, 2024

[worldaidsday]

ESWATINI - 2023 World AIDS Day satellite events (testing, outreach, awareness).

World AIDS Day will begin with a launch by the Minister of Health, followed by regional activities that will serve as a build-up to the main event on 1 December 2023.

The Shiselweni region event for the WAD targeting adolescent girls and Young Women (AGYW) will be held on 17 November.

The Hhohho region event for the WAD targeting Key population will be held on 24 November.

The National World AIDS Day event targeting the mobile population will be held on 1 December.

[leveloneandup]

christenpress I made a commitment to travel to Africa to visit Grassroot soccer programs every 4 years because I hope that my presence and words can remind the coaches and participants that their work matters. And that people from across the globe are invested in the betterment of their lives, wellbeing, and health. And at the same time, these experiences give me a precious gift in the form of perspective: how the most important forces of life: joy, kindness, love are not bound by socio-economic status or achievement. They are your birth right, and often are felt while moving your body in sport or in dance, celebrating someone else, and in a sense of community belonging. Nobody understands that better than the beautiful people we got to spend the last 3 days with in Zambia.

Day 1- our first intervention was at a health facility in Lusaka. The program provides mental health resources for adolescents ages 10-18 living with HIV. Through play based learning and discussion, our coach helped us work through how to deal with increasing pressures to participate in risky behaviors.

christenpress Our second intervention was truly something special to witness. GRS is helping coaches get trained as Community Based Distributors that provide family planning services to their neighbors in need. With stigma around contraceptives and being sexually active, adolescents might be more comfortable going to someone they trust for these resources and tools. We saw a CBD open her home to young people from her community to provide them contraception. Not only does this increase use and ease of access, but also we witnessed how proud and impactful it can be to be a leader within the community working toward a better future.

christenpress For our last day and final intervention, ~40 GRS coaches from Lusaka came together to spend time with Tobin and me. We learned about the incredible work coaches are doing and participated in 4 different programs …and countless songs and dances. The GRS coaches are a big part of the magic of this organization. Change happens when you give young people (coaches are 18-24) from within these very communities the opportunity, resources and tools they need to uplift their communities themselves. They bring such joy, pride, and energy to each of the lessons- as they work toward a better future for themselves and their participants.

[liminalweirdo]

Why Are LCAD (Long Covid and Associated Disease) Rates Higher in Trans Adults?

Several major risk factors for LCAD are higher in trans populations, including:

Previous chronic illness and disability

Socio-economic risk factors:

lower income

inability to adequately rest in the early weeks after developing COVID

“Female” sex (Most studies do not use best practices on gender in research)

Epstein Barr virus reactivation (May be higher in people with HIV;  trans people have higher HIV rates

Presence of specific autoantibodies

Pre-existing conditions:

Connective tissue disorders (Example: Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is more common in “adolescents with gender dysphoria;” source)

ADHD (more common in trans people), chronic urticaria and allergic rhinitis

⅓ of people with Long COVID have no identified pre-existing conditions

Higher prevalence of Long Covid in certain ethnicities, especially people with Hispanic or Latiné heritage

https://longcovidjustice.org/

[bat-besties]

Mia Dearden and Steph Brown Headcanons! 

I’d love for them to meet supporting the Birds of Prey! They would both be about 18 when this happens, so Steph’s new to Batgirl but has been Spoiler, and Mia has been Speedy for a year. 

They both want to have fun and prove themselves, and I think there might be a little competition between them and their mentors over their use to the team. 

Mia is better at long-range combat and undercover work; Steph is better at short-range combat and detective work. 

They both talk. A Lot. 

Steph is very talkative because she’s very extroverted and friendly; Mia is talkative but it’s more of a defence mechanism at first, she’s actually a bit shy. I think that at first Steph can’t work out why Mia gets more quiet as time goes on and worries she’s mad at her, before realising this is a Cass/Tim situation. That’s cool - Steph can manage her introverts. Mia then goes up to being very talkative again, but with quiet stretches between. She appreciates that Steph can match her energy whether it’s a long ramble, a rapid conversation, or just chilling in silence together.

Steph gives Mia tips on using her hooded cape for Maximum Dramatics and Mia shows Steph how to hang upside down (“You’re a bat, right?”)

Mia met Babs at the wedding and is intimidated by her. She was too shy to tell her she’s started hacking herself, but Steph would slip it into conversation and Babs would be excited! Meanwhile Steph is like “you need to STOP me talking to Dinah before I tell her something embarrassing” (and Mia does) 

They both idolise Huntress the most out of the Birds of Prey. Come on, she rocks purple, stands up to Batman and defied her criminal origins? She’s also a badass with a bow? They gush over her together. She is also the only person who can get them to shut up over the comms. 

They love the same teen music and commiserate over Harper and Ollie making fun of it when it is actually really fun and catchy! Mia and Steph fight scene where they take down Riddler to the tune of One Direction’s Best Song Ever. The Birds of Prey record the security footage for them. 

Steph prefers reading classics and Mia prefers YA, so they swap recommendations (Steph recommends Dracula and Mia We were Liars)

However they do discover they’re both Hunger Games fans. 

Mia is a straight-A student and Steph struggles more with academics, but Mia knows more than anyone that intelligence comes in a lot of forms and it’s hard to catch up after a difficult childhood/adolescence. Equally, just how impressive Mia’s academics are (SHE SKIPPED ALL OF MIDDLE SCHOOL) is something Steph can fully appreciate and hype the fuck up. 

Honestly being with someone else from a working class background is nice amongst all the billionaires. Oliver keeps telling Mia to read Marx when she talks about her childhood. Bruce once gave Steph $50 to buy a box of tampons. Yes she kept it.

They do realise that neither man really understands the crucial gap between Steph growing up on the poverty line [under US census definition] with parental neglect and Mia staving off homelessness through survival sex work. The girls are acutely aware that Mia came from a background like Steph’s but had to leave due to abuse, and that their situations could easily be reversed. They could have really nuanced conversations about gender and class. 

Steph makes a joke about being pressured to sexualise herself at 15 and Mia’s like SAME and tells a much more concerning joke and Steph completely cracks up. 

Mia: I’m glad you found that funny because it did make Connor almost cry.  

Steph: Oh yeah, you should meet Cass. Her sense of humour is so dark Signal couldn’t light it.

They’d bond over friendship with Tim! When Steph hears about how chill and accepting he was of Mia’s HIV diagnosis she’s not at all surprised because that’s Tim all over. She tells Mia how when she first met Tim he thought he got Steph pregnant with a kiss and was still reading feminist theory for the first time. That’s her boy! He listened. 

Mia worries that reaching out to Tim or the other Teen Titans would be weird since they haven’t reached out to her and maybe they won’t even really remember her- 

Steph tells her if she rocks up to the tower for a reason other than the world ending and with some snacks, they’ll talk about it for months after. (She knows because she did it). 

Steph offers to introduce Mia to Cass, Kara, Damian, and other heroes she’s teamed up with over the years. 

In turn, Mia realises Steph struggles to make friends at community college despite her friendliness and with Mia actually having friends at high school, she gives Steph tips for “getting close to people authentically when you can’t tell them about the vigilante thing”. We see in the comics how Mia has to work on making friends, so I feel like she could pass on advice to Steph who is more used to hanging around people enough that they become close and being super open. 

Mia tends to get more quiet and passive aggressive, Steph tends to yell and confront rather than letting things simmer. They would struggle to deal with this at first. For Mia, Steph yelling would remind her of Richard and make her feel Steph is trying to intimidate her. For Steph, Mia making mean comments would remind her of Bruce and make her feel that Mia thinks she’s better than Steph. 

However, I think they could communicate to work this out and deal with conflict without yelling and with direct communication. 

Mia makes Steph watch Powerpuff Girls and Steph makes Mia watch Gravity Falls. 

They also have a sleepover involving a ton of snacks and Project Runway

It’s nice to talk about casual things - like how Mia’s boyfriend cheated on her with Emma Watson, Steph and Tim tried to date in costume but not out of it, and how Mia has killed someone and Steph has tried multiple times. Normal teen stuff.  

They end up having some deep chats on stakeout: So how was the realising not all men are evil being deeply painful because it meant your father chose to be like that? 

Mia: Even though he proved he’d never hurt me, Ollie kind of set back my progress in trusting men when he cheated on Dinah. It just felt like even good men would betray women for sex. But he’s grown from that and they’re married now.

Steph: Yeah, Bruce set me back when he had a mafia alter ego and didn’t tell me, leading to my brutal death which he still blames me for to this day. 

Mia: GIRL

Look the two of them have to look after a young girl together and get her to a safe place and use her testimony/skill to take down whoever was hurting her so she's part of her own rescue. They just have to. 

One of them is a natural blonde and one dyes her hair. They know which is which but they’ll never tell.

[sparksinthenight]

While more resources have gone into decreasing and treating HIV, millions of children and adolescents still suffer from this illness. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/fast-facts-critical-gains-hiv-response-adolescents-especially-girls-remain

[generoustreemystic]

@plasticfantasticl0ver @peaceloveelvis so I am officially done reading Baby Let's Play House after the epilogue and my mind is trying to process everything after what just happened. I do remember what my mother told me about Elvis Presley growing up that ever since Priscilla gave birth to Lisa Marie; he wouldn't make love to Priscilla anymore and she is so surprised Elvis didn't get so many young girls or women pregnant throughout his entire life/career - fear of STDs or HIV and seeing a woman in labor. After reading the book and trying not to be too judgmental or have a beginner's mindset; we all have our ups and downs, flaws, imperfections, and most of all human beings doing the best that we can for ourselves and the people that we cherish or love ❤. I understand that talking about sex was taboo back then and you got to figure it out through experience or something to that affect. But I am so glad my mom had "the talk" with my sister and I when we were adolescents about to hit puberty while taking us out for lunch. She even showed us a video on how she had a C-section from my sister and I when we were born and let's just say we both kind of threw up or had baby barf in the bathroom 😅 so getting pregnant was not our cup of tea - no offense. With relationship wise I'm not sure I'll ever be ready because I was raised to be independent and don't need to rely on a guy to make me happy and to always treat people with compassion/kindness or do the right thing- because I heard or listened to majority of women saying how hard their relationships are with their significant other or the men took advantage of their vulnerability and they have to sacrifice everything for the men's happiness, etc. So yeah these are my thoughts and tell me your thoughts about the book and what did you get out of it or anything that's on your mind, etc.?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Leor Sapir

Published: Dec 30, 2023

🚨🚨 IMPORTANT 🚨🚨

The World Health Organization is convening a guideline development group (GDG) on gender medicine.

I rarely circulate or ask followers to sign petitions, but I’m making an exception because WHO’s actions are very troubling.

Thread. ⬇️ 

On December 18, WHO announced that it will be developing a guideline on “the health of trans and gender diverse people.” As the petition notes, there are three areas of concern here. 

First, the composition of the GDG is heavily biased toward an “affirmative” approach that rejects safeguarding (“gatekeeping”) and considers any alternative to hormones and surgeries on demand as unethical “conversion therapy.” 

Of the 21 panel members, three-fourths are either trans-identified, members of “affirmative” advocacy groups, or members of WPATH, an activist group that presents itself as a professional medical association (and recognizes child "eunuchs"). 

Some members have failed to properly disclose conflicts of interest, and WHO seems to have made no effort to balance COIs by inviting diverse perspectives.

COIs are unavoidable; evidence-based medicine requires that clinical practice guideline developers balance COIs. 

For example, one of the panel members is Canadian law professor and transgender activist Florence Ashley (pronouns “they/them/that bitch”). Ashley has argued against any form of safeguarding for adults and adolescents. 

Ashley: the goal of medicine should be to help individuals achieve “gender euphoria” through “creative transfiguration.” Doctors are to help adults and “older teenagers” turn their bodies into “gendered art piec[es]” with hormones and surgeries.

Second, WHO’s public consultation period is suspiciously short and poorly-timed. Typically, public consultation periods last months, if not years. This is especially true, one would think, with novel medical interventions that carry significant risks and involve minors. 

WHO announced a mere 3-week public consultation period., No less suspicious, that period falls on Christmas, New Year, and the first week of January, a period when most people are on vacation or away from their desk. This is not a sincere effort to elicit public input. 

Third, the guideline development process is rushed. The proposed date for the GDG to convene in Switzerland is February 21—a mere two months after WHO announced the initiative. 

In comparison, the NHS/Cass Review process for reviewing evidence and developing new recommendations has been going on for over three years. 

In conclusion, it’s hard not to suspect that WHO is rigging the process to produce a desired and predetermined result. 

WHO may not undermine reform efforts in countries with strong health bureaucracies that are determined to conduct systematic reviews and rely on EBM principles, but it will likely shape the realities of gender medicine where debates are just starting to emerge (e.g., the US) 

If you are concerned about WHO’s motives or process, please sign and circulate the petition. Although all signatures are welcome, those of medical and mental health professionals and of researchers are especially needed.

[ Original thread: https://twitter.com/i/status/1741210385108136119 ]

--

We, the undersigned, strongly object to the World Health Organization's (WHO) biased panel tasked with creating new transgender health guidelines. Of the 21 panel members, over three-fourths are transgender activists. The few physicians either specialize in HIV or are “gender doctors.” There is currently a worldwide explosion of teenagers wishing to undergo a sex change; WHO’s stated plan to promote hormones and “legal recognition of self-identified gender” will harm innumerable gender-dysphoric youth, gays, lesbians and other women. WHO must cancel this group's first planned meeting in February and go back to the drawing board.

==

the goal of medicine should be to help individuals achieve “gender euphoria” through “creative transfiguration.” Doctors are to help adults and “older teenagers” turn their bodies into “gendered art piec[es]” with hormones and surgeries.

Jesus fucking Christ. That is not medicine. That's cosmetic surgery on-demand for delusion and fantasy.

How did we get to such a nadir that this is the kind of nutcase who is driving public policy? It would appear they've given up the whole "medically necessary" thing, though.

Signed.

[onetwistedmiracle]

Twice-a-year shot provides 100 percent HIV protection, study finds

None of the 5,000 women and girls in South Africa and Uganda who received the shots contracted the virus that causes AIDS, a study shows. A trial for men is underway.

By Rachel Pannett for The Washington Post

July 25, 2024 at 1:05 a.m. EDT

A twice-yearly injection could help prevent HIV infections, according to the results of a new study described by medical experts as a breakthrough.

In a randomized trial involving more than 5,000 young women and girls in South Africa and Uganda, none of those who received the prevention shots contracted HIV. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.

“This appears to be a new breakthrough for HIV prevention. If these injections can be widely distributed at low cost, it would dramatically reduce the risk of new HIV infections worldwide,” said Sarah Palmer, co-director of the Center for Virus Research at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research in Sydney, who was not involved in the peer-reviewed study. “It is especially encouraging this research focused on young women in Africa who are so highly at-risk for HIV infection.”

Worldwide there are about 1.3 million new HIV infections every year, with women and girls accounting for 44 percent of them. In sub-Saharan Africa, that proportion is 62 percent.

The shots were produced by drugmaker Gilead Sciences, which funded the trial, and some of the researchers were Gilead employees. Lenacapavir, sold under the brand name Sunlenca, is approved as a treatment for HIV infections in the United States. The goal of the trial was to prove its safety and efficacy for the prevention of infection in adolescent girls and young women. A separate trial for men is underway.

When it became clear that the shots were more effective than daily pills — 1.5 percent to 1.8 percent of participants who received one of two daily pills as part of the trial contracted HIV from their partners — the trial was halted and all participants were offered the option of receiving the injections, the researchers said. The researchers also found the incidence of HIV was lower with the use of the shots than the usual rate of HIV in the community.

HIV can be prevented through the use of protective measures such as condoms and daily pills that are in wide use in high-income countries around the world. But health experts say it can be difficult to maintain a daily pill routine in places like Africa, where limited access to health care and a dearth of educational programs put girls at particular risk for HIV.

Doctors Without Borders and other groups are calling for global action to break Gilead’s monopoly on lenacapavir to allow mass production of the drug and reduce its cost. Gilead charges $42,250 per patient per year for lenacapavir in the United States.

“Lenacapavir could be life-changing for people at risk of getting HIV and could reverse the epidemic if it is made affordable in the countries with the highest rate of new infections,” said Helen Bygrave, a chronic disease adviser at Doctors Without Borders.

Gilead previously said it was committed to lowering the cost of its drugs in low-income countries.

By Rachel Pannett

Rachel Pannett joined the Post's foreign desk in 2021 after more than a decade with The Wall Street Journal, where she was deputy bureau chief for Australia and New Zealand. Twitter

[timbarrus]

No mention of alcohol and HIV. I was working with adolescent boys with HIV and alcoholism. I have read thousands of these well-written, cogent pieces. But even the mention in this article -- and all the others -- is missing a lot. AIDS means stigma. Alcohol does not block the pain. HIV can be racism on steroids. I don't know where you live, but in my little world, Appalachia, it matters what side of the tracks you live on. Mixing this stuff will kill you. Access is a fantasy. 12 teenage boys is a goodly portion of many tiny American towns that have their own issues. Acting Up was not an option. AIDS did not spare them. Oxycontin did not spare them

It took me a while to comprehend that the addiction to Oxy was causing their medications to become toxic. The problem is alcohol, but secrets come with a toxicity all by their own little selves. It's a demon fix. Let's get real. Their lives depend on our getting real. Now, on to fentanyl. More secrets. More Thunderbird. In a field situated near their school. No drug/alcohol treatment. Doctors are complicit, and have addiction issues themselves. At that time, everyone with HIV was using Sustiva which ran fluidly through Wonderland on a dizzy adventure tour involving the community writ large. Horror stories. All the same story. All the same secrets. A Sustiva trip is the equivalent of LSD. Alcohol, Oxy, HIV drugs, violence from dealers, poverty, alcohol, Fentanyl, school failure, suicide.They kill themselves.The end.

[follow-up-news]

Nearly 40 million people were living with the HIV virus that causes AIDS last year, over 9 million weren’t getting any treatment, and the result was that every minute someone died of AIDS-related causes, the U.N. said in a new report launched Monday. While advances are being made to end the global AIDS pandemic, the report said progress has slowed, funding is shrinking, and new infections are rising in three regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America. In 2023, around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, a significant decline from the 2.1 million deaths in 2004. But the latest figure is more than double the target for 2025 of fewer than 250,000 deaths, according to the report by UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the global effort to end the pandemic. Gender inequality is exacerbating the risks for girls and women, the report said, citing the extraordinarily high incidence of HIV among adolescents and young women in parts of Africa.

[hasdrubal-gisco]

June 20, 2024 – Gilead Sciences, Inc. today announced topline results from an interim analysis of its pivotal, Phase 3 PURPOSE 1 trial indicating that the company’s twice-yearly injectable HIV-1 capsid inhibitor, lenacapavir, demonstrated 100% efficacy for the investigational use of HIV prevention in cisgender women. [...] PURPOSE 1, a Phase 3, double-blind, randomized study, is evaluating the safety and efficacy of twice-yearly, subcutaneous lenacapavir for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and once-daily oral Descovy® (emtricitabine 200mg and tenofovir alafenamide 25mg; F/TAF) in more than 5,300 cisgender women and adolescent girls aged 16-25 across 25 sites in South Africa and three sites in Uganda. The drugs are being tested in parallel, with one group receiving twice-yearly lenacapavir and one group taking once-daily oral Descovy. Additionally, a third group was assigned once-daily oral Truvada. Study participants were randomized in a 2:2:1 ratio to lenacapavir, Descovy and Truvada, respectively. Because effective PrEP options already exist, there is broad consensus in the PrEP field that a placebo group would be unethical; thus, the trial used bHIV as the primary comparator and Truvada as a secondary comparator. There were 0 incident cases of HIV infection among 2,134 women in the lenacapavir group (incidence 0.00 per 100 person-years). There were 16 incident cases among 1,068 women in the Truvada group (incidence 1.69 per 100 person-years). The results demonstrated superiority of twice-yearly lenacapavir over bHIV (primary endpoint, incidence 2.41 per 100 person-years) and superiority of twice-yearly lenacapavir over once-daily Truvada (secondary endpoint), with p<0.0001 for both endpoints. In the trial, lenacapavir was generally well-tolerated and no significant or new safety concerns were identified. HIV incidence in the Descovy group was numerically similar (39 incident cases among 2,136 women, incidence 2.02 per 100 person-years) to that in the Truvada group and was not statistically superior to bHIV. Previous clinical trials among cisgender women have commonly found challenges with adherence to daily oral pills for PrEP, and adherence analyses for Descovy and Truvada from PURPOSE 1 are ongoing. In the trial, both Descovy and Truvada were generally well-tolerated and no new safety concerns were identified. 

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazilian regulators greenlight HIV prevention drug

Brazil’s federal health regulator Anvisa has approved injectable cabotegravir, a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication for HIV. The registration was published in the official gazette on June 5.

Injectable cabotegravir has been recommended as a preventative treatment for HIV by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) since October 2020. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it in late 2021 for use in at-risk adults and adolescents over at least 35 kilograms for pre-exposure prophylaxis to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV. 

In 2022, the World Health Organization also recommended that member countries approve injectable cabotegravir as PrEP for HIV.

Continue reading.

[terror-billie]

the thing about this hellsite is that you could have spent your entire adolescence shunned and isolated for being neurodivergent, disabled, and visibly queer but that's just the typical user and so they'll make fun of you for calling yourself weird

to hit weird in the trench depths of tumblr you have to pretend to be two HIV positive sex trafficking survivors from the global south so you can't get called out for writing fanfiction but you get exposed by a different writer, of cannibal mermaid hamilton fic

[wouldshesnip]

Cady Heron (Mean Girls)

Having spent most of her adolescent years in Kenya, Cady would be familiar with circumcision as both a tribal rite of passage and a method of voluntary HIV prevention, but she would probably be surprised at the prevalence of routine infant circumcision in suburban America. However, with how quickly she learns to survive high school as a mean girl, she would probably pick up Regina's opinion on foreskin. By the end of the school year, Cady grows out of of her mean girl ways, but as a mother she would still want to do what's socially acceptable.

Would She Snip?: Yes