Excerpt from a health course
Topic: HIV / AIDS
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the body’s immune system for which there is no cure. Its cause is the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which targets the cells of the body’s lymphatic system to reproduce. Because HIV destroys the ability of these cells to fight infection, the body can easily succumb to infectious (opportunistic) diseases that are lethal. Once a person contracts HIV, he or she cannot be rid of it—before present therapies were designed, a patient could develop late stage AIDS and die within a few years of being infected. Today, with early treatment and proper medical care, the progression (pathophysiology) of HIV disease into AIDS can be controlled so that individuals may live decades without becoming seriously ill. Many can expect to have a normal life with a practically normal life expectancy.
History
2011 marked thirty years since the first cases of AIDS in the U.S. were brought to the attention of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the central government agency designated to report on the spread of infectious disease in the United States. The CDC detailed the first reports of HIV infection in 1981 in its Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (MMWR)—although the virus was as yet unnamed and would not be identified as the cause of AIDS until 1984. At that time, all that could be determined was that two uncommonly aggressive illnesses, a lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP, now P. jiroveci) and a skin cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), were affecting a few gay men in Los Angeles and New York City. The men had other unusual infections that indicated their immune systems were not functioning properly. By December 31, 1981, the CDC received reports of 270 cases of severe immune deficiency among gay men—121 of those individuals had died (AIDS.gov, 2011)
The AIDS pandemic spread rapidly through the 1980s and into the 1990s, striking down large swaths of minority populations who already faced stigmatization because of behavioral practices and prior medical conditions—men with a history of having sex with other men (MSM), injection drug users (IDU) and infants born to such women, hemophiliac sufferers, and people who had received blood transfusions from surgical operations. By race and gender, African American men were and continue to be the most disproportionately affected.
Activist Paul Boneberg, Executive Director of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, explained in the film documentary, We Were Here, how quickly the virus impacted San Francisco’s gay population before the medical community understood how to treat and prevent it. Mr. Boneberg founded the Mobilization Against A.I.D.S. in 1984, which advocated for a quick response to the health crisis.
“HIV arrives first in San Francisco around 1976. By 1979, probably ten percent of the gay men…were infected. By the time we discover such a thing as AIDS is even happening—in June of 1981—roughly twenty percent are infected. By the time we get the test, so people can find out if they’re infected, close to fifty percent of the gay men of San Francisco are already infected.”
With the discovery and implementation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 1996, using drug concoctions of protease inhibiters, along with the testing of blood supplies, and dissemination of knowledge about means of prevention, the yearly death toll of AIDS has eased, particularly in the Western World. The war however, has not been won—more than half of those infected get no treatment. Scientists continue to explore how to make HIV drugs and prevention safer, easier and more effective, while advocacy groups tackle the problems of research funding and universal access to care.
Topic: HIV / AIDS
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the body’s immune system for which there is no cure. Its cause is the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which targets the cells of the body’s lymphatic system to reproduce. Because HIV destroys the ability of these cells to fight infection, the body can easily succumb to infectious (opportunistic) diseases that are lethal. Once a person contracts HIV, he or she cannot be rid of it—before present therapies were designed, a patient could develop late stage AIDS and die within a few years of being infected. Today, with early treatment and proper medical care, the progression (pathophysiology) of HIV disease into AIDS can be controlled so that individuals may live decades without becoming seriously ill. Many can expect to have a normal life with a practically normal life expectancy.
History
2011 marked thirty years since the first cases of AIDS in the U.S. were brought to the attention of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the central government agency designated to report on the spread of infectious disease in the United States. The CDC detailed the first reports of HIV infection in 1981 in its Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (MMWR)—although the virus was as yet unnamed and would not be identified as the cause of AIDS until 1984. At that time, all that could be determined was that two uncommonly aggressive illnesses, a lung infection, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP, now P. jiroveci) and a skin cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), were affecting a few gay men in Los Angeles and New York City. The men had other unusual infections that indicated their immune systems were not functioning properly. By December 31, 1981, the CDC received reports of 270 cases of severe immune deficiency among gay men—121 of those individuals had died (AIDS.gov, 2011)
The AIDS pandemic spread rapidly through the 1980s and into the 1990s, striking down large swaths of minority populations who already faced stigmatization because of behavioral practices and prior medical conditions—men with a history of having sex with other men (MSM), injection drug users (IDU) and infants born to such women, hemophiliac sufferers, and people who had received blood transfusions from surgical operations. By race and gender, African American men were and continue to be the most disproportionately affected.
Activist Paul Boneberg, Executive Director of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, explained in the film documentary, We Were Here, how quickly the virus impacted San Francisco’s gay population before the medical community understood how to treat and prevent it. Mr. Boneberg founded the Mobilization Against A.I.D.S. in 1984, which advocated for a quick response to the health crisis.
“HIV arrives first in San Francisco around 1976. By 1979, probably ten percent of the gay men…were infected. By the time we discover such a thing as AIDS is even happening—in June of 1981—roughly twenty percent are infected. By the time we get the test, so people can find out if they’re infected, close to fifty percent of the gay men of San Francisco are already infected.”
With the discovery and implementation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 1996, using drug concoctions of protease inhibiters, along with the testing of blood supplies, and dissemination of knowledge about means of prevention, the yearly death toll of AIDS has eased, particularly in the Western World. The war however, has not been won—more than half of those infected get no treatment. Scientists continue to explore how to make HIV drugs and prevention safer, easier and more effective, while advocacy groups tackle the problems of research funding and universal access to care.