Should people with HIV/AIDS be allowed to handle food in restaurants?

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This isn't a disease straight people get in any numbers worth worrying about. (unless you use needle drugs of course)

Not true, hetero Black women have very high rates of HIV now.

I highlighted the caveat.

In addition if a group of people is promiscuous during the seroconversion period then all bets are off.  Although the seroconversion period is relatively short if you have unprotected sex with several people during this time there is a much higher chance you will infect them.  If they are similarly promiscuous then they in turn will infect multiple people during their seroconversion period.

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I think some of you are mixing up two different things. HIV doesn't get easily transmitted via vaginal sex and thus a straight person not doing anal is unlikely to get it that way.

That is an excellent post.  I only need to make a couple of clarifications.  If a woman is HIV positive and a man performs anal sex on her I think he is still at a low risk of getting HIV.  I think the recipient of anal sex male or female is the one at increased risk.  Don't quote me on that though.  Secondly, HIV is very transmitable heterosexually during the seroconversion period.  Fortunately that is a short amount of time in the sexual history of a patient.  And I also must emphasize that there are a lot of men that are bisexual so a chunk of those allegedly hetero cases have some homo activity involved.  Homosexual activity particularly in the black community is very frowned upon and is kept on the "down low."  The term "down low" has actually entered the scientific literature to describe this clandestine behavior.  Because this behavior is kept on the down low the people involved are not taking adequate precautions and hetero women that would otherwise not have sex with a homo man are having sex with these guys.

Obviously, scare mongering on stuff like this is probably a good idea, but the odds of getting HIV from a random straight sex encounter is very low.

Yes the last figure I saw was outside of the seroconversion period heterosexual vaginal sex with a nonIVDA resulted in HIV infection in something like 1:300 contacts.  So if you had unprotected sex once with 200 women that were on HAART and didn't have full blown AIDS chances are you would be fine.

I do not suggest anyone try this experiment.

One other thing.  I know women don't visit Atlas Forum but I would be remiss if I didn't mention...

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This isn't a disease straight people get in any numbers worth worrying about. (unless you use needle drugs of course)

Tens of millions of Africans say 'hi'.

It should be noted that the infection rate from vaginal intercourse is much higher in the Third World than in the First World.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When you already have an open wound on your junk from syphilis, it makes HIV much easier to transmit. One of the best ways to fight new cases of AIDS in Africa would be to treat the easy to fix old-fashioned STDs.

No doubt.

Unfortunately I don't think someone with a moniker like "lowtech redneck" really reads much medical literature.

This is one of the problems I have with right wing policies.  They refuse to spend a modest amount of tax money up front to prevent much more expensive long term problems.  If Reagan and his right wing friends had not ignored HIV in the eighties because it was a "gay" disease we really could have gotten a handle on things.  Instead we have third world infection rates and we are spending billions a year to combat the problem.  As Africa has illustrated if you don't get a handle on the problem early then everyone is at a much more increased risk of infection.  All it would have taken was education (real education not that BS abstinence only crap), condoms, needle exchange programs, and money towards research.  But nnooooo...  They had to be a bunch of Bible beating homophobic penny pinchers that only wanted to waste money building nuclear weapons.

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Unfortunately I don't think someone with a moniker like "lowtech redneck" really reads much medical literature.

Anyway, AIDS is transmitted the same way as other STD's; the problem in Africa (particularly southern Africa) ultimately derives from a combination of regional sexual norms and practices, an economy centered on migratory and transitional employment, proximity to original source of the disease, etc.  

The point of my original post being, of course, that AIDS is more than capable of spreading in primarily non-needle-using, heterosexual circles whenever people do not worry about it(either willfully or due to ignorance).

Please read this...

When you already have an open wound on your junk from syphilis, it makes HIV much easier to transmit.

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Unfortunately I don't think someone with a moniker like "lowtech redneck" really reads much medical literature.

Anyway, AIDS is transmitted the same way as other STD's; the problem in Africa (particularly southern Africa) ultimately derives from a combination of regional sexual norms and practices, an economy centered on migratory and transitional employment, proximity to original source of the disease, etc.  

The point of my original post being, of course, that AIDS is more than capable of spreading in primarily non-needle-using, heterosexual circles whenever people do not worry about it(either willfully or due to ignorance).

Please read this...

When you already have an open wound on your junk from syphilis, it makes HIV much easier to transmit.

Obviously, that would be a contributing factor, and a result of the same social, cultural, and economic factors as the AIDS epidemic.  It is foolish to think you don't have to worry about AIDS being transmitted through vaginal intercourse unless you have diseased genitals-attitudes like that are a good way to reverse what progress has been made since the eighties and nineties.

No actually.  It's not an attitude.  It's scientific fact.  The problem with the policies of the eighties, nineties, and today is they are driven by attitudes not scientific fact.  In America if you provide needle exchange programs and treat IVDAs not as criminals but patients and provide real sex education and condomns you will get a much better handle on the problem.  Secondly if you provide an adequate social safety net and a way out of poverty for poor people you will also see a decrease in HIV.

Let me be clear.  I've spoken with countless HIV positive individuals.  If you exclude the people from the third world I have never spoken with anyone who acquired HIV through heterosexual sex with another heterosexual who is educated and does not use IV drugs... never.  That is not to say it does not happen but when you realize the true nature of the problem then you can come up with an effective solution.

Europe has better access to healthcare, better sex education (ie none of this abstenance only garbage), better social welfare and needle exchange programs.  All of those solutions are common sense.  But yet we have to debate even this common sense stuff every election.

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No, it is scientific fact that unprotected vaginal sex with an infected individual poses a high risk of AIDS transmission (especially for women, but its far from a minor risk for men), and attitudes to the contrary promote higher levels of unprotected sex between casual sex partners, increasing HIV infection rates.

No it doesn't unless 5 in 10,000 is "high risk" to you.

Its apparently high enough of a risk to dramatically increase overall AIDS transmission rates when condom use is devalued, and that's high enough for me.

Again in all the real life situations I've seen multiple factors contribute to the spread of HIV.  I will state this again as clearly as possible.  I have never seen in a first world country a heterosexual college educated man contract HIV from vaginal intercourse with a college educated woman who was not an IVDA or prostitute, etc.  It can and does happen but at a far lower rate than amongst homosexuals or IVDAs.  Fact.  Condoms play a roll but condom use amongst college educated heterosexual nonIVDA in first world countries is by no means anywhere near the sole or major determinate of HIV transmission in general.

From our friends at the CDC...



In short you are not going to get HIV from eating food at a restaurant.  The very notion is absurd.

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unprotected heterosexual sex is sufficient as a means of HIV transmission to develop into a pandemic

no.

Are you aware that in Africa there was a time when they did mass vaccinations on school children using a single unchanged needle?  I'm going to guess "lowtech redneck" you did not know that.

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Right, but it's also not responsible to portray AIDS as something that regularly kills straight people in the West (except for black chicks).  Should you wear a jimmy hat when you're porking that bar fly?  Of course.  If you don't should you worry you got the HIV?  No.

Well I wouldn't say that.  Big groups of infected people in the US are Gays and IVDAs.  My generalizations are more of a population level type of thing than an individual on a night out thing.  You are correct though in saying if you take some care in who you associate with then your chances of getting HIV even without a condom are minuscule.  The problem with a random girl at a bar is she may be an IVDA or have a bisexual boyfriend.  The chances of that happening if you aren't in the habit of hanging out at scummy bars is definitely much lower.

The problem is that even if the probability is vanishingly low the consequences of it happening are devastating so you kind of don't even want to take that chance.  We have been using the terms risk and probability like they are synonyms.  They in fact are not.  Risk is the probability of something happening multiplied by the negative effect of the outcome.  The risk associated with having unprotected sex with a random woman from even a nice bar is high, but the probability of the ultimate bad outcome happening is low.

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From our friends at the CDC...



In short you are not going to get HIV from eating food at a restaurant.  The very notion is absurd.

First of all, I'm concerned about the spread of AIDS in general, not just among my college-educated heterosexual male demographic.

Good for you.  Unfortunately medicine is complex.  You can't take a one size fits all approach to the entire planet.  The driving forces behind the HIV epidemic in Africa are almost completely different than the driving forces in the United States.  What works to slow the spread in San Francisco is not going to work in Timbuktu and for the most part vice versa.