Connections: Sexual Health, Society, and HIV

The XIX International AIDS conference was recently held in Washington, D.C. It had been 22 years since the International AIDS conference was held in the United States (mainly due to the unwillingness on the part of the United States to grant visas for HIV-infected individuals–only recently lifted).

Here 25,000 scientists, policy makers, health and education ministry officials, advocates, and activists from around the world were gathered with a renewed determination to stem the tide of this epidemic.  Medical advances, improved access to care, prevention initiatives, and revived determination were all good signs, but as a global culture we will need to shift our perspective to stop the spread of HIV.

Putting Sex into STD Prevention

One evening, during the week of the 2001 ISSTDR meeting in Berlin, I met with a couple of colleagues for beers after the day’s proceedings. We lamented the fact that the focus of these types of conferences was always on disease and that a broader sexuality frame work was missing. “It is time to put sex into STD prevention”, one of my colleagues said.  The comment was a bit wistful at the time and I don’t think any of us could have foreseen that a decade later our field is expressing so much more interest in sexuality and sexual health.

Turning the Tide on HIV

Reports of dramatic decline in sexual risks among black youth is certainly news that brings cheer and deserves universal appreciation. The advances made by a community that has been disproportionately affected by the scourge of HIV/AIDS are certainly encouraging. The data covering 1991 to 2011 was presented by Dr Laura Kann, Ph.D., Chief, Surveillance and Evaluation Research Branch, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the XIX International AIDS Conference held on July 25, 2012, at Washington, D.C.

Sex and the (Elder) City

Recently, 74-year-old icon Jane Fonda stirred up the imagination of her ardent admirers as she admitted in an interview that she ‘never had such a fulfilling sex life’ as she has now. Looking through the hourglass of time, this statement by the twice Academy award winning American actress challenges established myths and demolishes preconceived notions about indulgence in sex by seniors.

Health care savings–at what cost?

A recent piece in the Huffington Post profiled a young man named Greg Hartman. While Hartman was working his way through college in Manitowoc, WI, he learned that a close friend had been infected with hepatitis C. Hartman thought about getting tested as himself, but with his restaurant job only pulling in about $150 a week, he couldn’t afford the $300 for testing. Instead, he went to the University of Wisconsin’s campus health center and applied for BadgerCare, Wisconsin’s Medicaid-funded family planning program, which reimburses low-income individuals for preventative reproductive health needs, such as STI testing and birth control. Hartman was then able to get tested for both hepatitis C and HIV, and tested positive for the former. Without affordable medical coverage like BadgerCare, Hartman notes, he wouldn’t have bothered to get tested.