Posts made by MrMazda

Is 'Undetectable' the New Safe Sex
Source: HIVPlusMag
A groundbreaking new study is quantifying transmission risk for gay men when one partner has an undetectable viral load.

BY Lucas Grindley September 15 2014 10:42 AM ET

The landmark Partner study that everyone is talking about—which tracked HIV transmission risk through condomless sex if the HIV-positive partner is on suppressive antiretroviral medication—has so far found not even one case of an HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load transmitting the virus to a partner. But people in your everyday life may still be a little disbelieving.

“The most common response I get from disbelievers is that positive men use ‘undetectable’ as a way of getting people to sleep with them without a condom,” says Tyler Curry, an editor with the new group HIV Equal, who has written about his frustration with gay men still ignorant about what it means to be undetectable. “Positive men don’t want to transmit the virus to someone who is negative just as much as a negative person doesn’t want to become positive,” Curry emphasizes.

The Partner study itself comes with a series of warnings about what exactly the study has really found about undetectable viral loads. Researchers don’t recommend that undetectable gay and bi men have sex without the usual methods of protection, for example.

While some of this could be used as cover by skeptics, it also means positive people are left to understand and explain all of this science to a world that continues to stigmatize (and in some cases, criminalize) anyone with HIV.

Of the 1,100-plus couples taking part in the Partner study out of Europe, 40 percent are gay. This is the first time any study has so comprehensively investigated the risk of anal sex among men who have sex with men. To join, couples had to say up front that they sometimes don’t use protection—meaning no condoms, and the HIV-negative partner could not be on a daily PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, regimen.

In an analysis presented to the world in March at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston, the study’s researchers also excluded any couple in which the HIV-positive partner’s viral load had gone above 200 copies per milliliter of blood. That’s the threshold at which they declared a person stopped being “undetectable.” Perhaps unnerving for anyone trying to keep their viral load down, that was the case for 16 percent of couples.

The first thing to understand about the Partner study is that some of the participants did contract HIV. Based on previous studies, researchers knew that odds were some of the negative partners would get HIV. So they put in place ways of identifying whether the undetectable partner had transmitted it to them.

Among gay men especially, the reality is that condomless sex outside of their primary relationship or marriage does happen with regularity. A third of the HIV-negative partners in gay couples reported having condomless sex with someone other than their primary partner, while just 3 to 4 percent of straight participants admitted the same thing. And what many experts already know about how HIV is transmitted still holds true: New infections usually come from people who are undiagnosed, who don’t know they have the virus, and who are not on treatment.

Partner researchers haven’t said exactly how many people contracted HIV during the study, promising only that the number would be released at a later date. But a phylogenetic analysis of the DNA from the strain of HIV showed it had not come from the undetectable partner. Meaning, the men who got HIV did so through someone other than their partner, who was undetectable.

More importantly, statistics show researchers should have seen 15 transmissions in straight couples and 86 in gay couples if partners hadn’t been on treatment. The chance of acquiring HIV from a partner who is undetectable very well might be zero. But that’s not what this study says, at least not yet.

The longer the study progresses and the more people who participate (Partner 2 starts this year and includes only gay couples), the higher confidence researchers can claim in their probabilities. Results so far are only preliminary and won’t be finalized until 2017.

The researchers themselves point out that their study isn’t the end-all for concerns about transmission. For example, they worked only with couples who said they hadn’t used condoms for two years, on average. Maybe transmission risk is greater the first time a serodiscordant couple has sex? They couldn’t know that from this study.

What researchers do is quantify levels of risk. A risk analysis published online in the journal AIDS in May attempted to make the basic point that risk accumulates over time, even if you’re using treatment as prevention. The chance of passing HIV to another person in a single year is less than it would be over a 10-year period, the study’s authors concluded, though they caution that the study is only a model and not meant to estimate actual transmission risk.

Partner researchers say a person with an undetectable viral load could indeed have zero risk of transmitting HIV. We’ve long known that it’s riskier to be the receptive partner during anal sex and that sex with ejaculation is riskier. So far researchers have also determined that the maximum possible risk for same-sex couples who have unprotected anal sex with ejaculation is only 4 percent, if the HIV-positive partner is on fully suppressive antiretroviral therapy. That small number is in itself big news.

Still, for some doubters it won’t make a difference.

“As far as dating goes, I don’t need to convince someone else that they are safe to date me because I am undetectable,” says Curry. “I give them the facts and they either accept them or they do not. Either way, I know what it means to be undetectable and I know that I am safe from ever transmitting the virus so long as I stay compliant.”

In Curry’s own relationship, he talked with his boyfriend about what it means to be undetectable when they first began dating. “But the topic quickly turned into a conversation about trust,” he said. “Undetectable, positive, negative, whatever…in a relationship, it is all about trust.”

Sex, Lies and HIV: When What You Don’t Tell Your Partner Is a Crime
Source: HIVPlusMag
Laws that criminalize HIV in this country are so askew, one man got a 25-year prison sentence after having sex using a condom, another when his viral load was undetectible; both had close to zero chance of passing HIV, but that's not really what these outdated laws punish. They punish people who are HIV-positive for having sex without disclosing, even if they have no chance of infecting another person.

BY Sergio Hernandez ProPublica March 26 2014 2:00 AM ET

Nick Rhoades was clerking at a Family Video store in Waverly, Iowa, one summer afternoon in 2008 when three armed detectives appeared, escorted him to a local hospital and ordered nurses to draw his blood. A dozen miles away, his mother and stepfather looked on as local sheriff’s deputies searched their home for drugs — not illegal drugs, but lifesaving prescription medications.

Lab results and a bottle of pills found in the Rhoades’ refrigerator confirmed the detectives’ suspicions: Nick Rhoades was HIV-positive.

Almost a year later, in a Black Hawk County courtroom, Judge Bradley Harris peered down at Rhoades from his bench.

“One thing that makes this case difficult is you don’t look like our usual criminals,” Harris said. “Often times for the court it is easy to tell when someone is dangerous. They pull the gun. They have done an armed robbery. But you created a situation that was just as dangerous as anyone who did that.”

The judge meted out Rhoades’ sentence: 25 years in prison.

His crime: having sex without first disclosing he had HIV.

Officially, the charge, buried in Chapter 709 of the Iowa code, is “criminal transmission of HIV.” But no transmission had occurred. The man Rhoades had sex with, 22-year-old Adam Plendl, had not contracted the virus.

That’s not a surprise, because Rhoades used a condom.

And medical records show he was taking antiviral drugs that suppressed his HIV, making transmission extremely unlikely. A national group of AIDS public health officials later submitted a brief estimating that the odds of Rhoades infecting Plendl were “likely zero or near zero.”

After his lawyers petitioned the court, Rhoades’ prison sentence was changed to five years’ probation. But for the rest of his life — he is 39 — he will remain registered as an aggravated sex offender who cannot be alone with anyone under the age of 14, not even his nieces and nephews.

Rhoades’ is not an isolated case. Over the last decade, there have been at least 541 cases in which people were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, criminal charges for not disclosing that they were HIV-positive, according to a ProPublica analysis of records from 19 states. The national tally is surely higher, because at least 35 states have laws that specifically criminalize exposing another person to HIV. In 29 states, it is a felony. None of the laws require transmission to occur.

Defendants in these cases were often sentenced to years — sometimes decades — in prison, even when they used a condom or took other precautions against infecting their partners. In 60 cases for which extensive documentation could be obtained, ProPublica found just four involving complainants who actually became infected with HIV. Even in such cases, it can be hard to prove who transmitted the virus without genetic tests matching the accused’s HIV strain to their accuser’s.

People with HIV have even done time for spitting, scratching, or biting. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spitting and scratching cannot transmit HIV, and transmission through biting “is very rare and involves very specific circumstances” — namely, “severe trauma with extensive tissue damage and the presence of blood.”

Many law enforcement officials and legislators defend these laws, saying they deter people from spreading the virus and set a standard for disclosure and precautions in an ongoing epidemic.

“Shifting the burden of HIV disclosure from the infected person, who is aware of a known danger, to one who is completely unaware of their partner’s condition smacks of a ‘blame the victim’ sort of mentality,” Jerry Vander Sanden, a prosecutor in Linn County, Iowa, wrote in an email to ProPublica. “It would be like telling a rape victim that they should have been more careful.”

Even many people with HIV support the laws. In a recent survey of HIV-positive people in New Jersey, 90 percent said that people with the virus bore most of the responsibility to protect their partners. More than half approved of the kind of laws that resulted in Rhoades’ sentence.

But some health and legal experts say using criminal penalties to curtail the epidemic could backfire and fuel the spread of HIV. According to the CDC, 1.1 million Americans are currently living with HIV, but one-fifth of them don’t know it. And studies show that about half of newly infected people got the virus from those who didn’t know they had HIV. So relying on a partner to know, let alone disclose, their HIV status is a risky proposition.

The laws, these experts say, could exacerbate this problem: If people can be imprisoned for knowingly exposing others to HIV, their best defense may be ignorance. Such laws, then, provide a powerful disincentive for citizens to get tested and learn if they carry the virus.

The laws “place all of the responsibility on one party: the party that’s HIV-positive,” said Scott Schoettes, a lawyer who supervises HIV litigation for Lambda Legal, a national gay-rights advocacy group. “And they lull people who are not HIV-positive — or at least think they are not HIV-positive — into believing that they don’t have to do anything. They can just wait for their partner to reveal their status and not, instead, take steps to protect themselves.”

Schoettes also says that the laws unfairly single out HIV, further stigmatizing and reinforcing misconceptions about living with the virus.

“There’s no reason why we should be singling out HIV for this kind of treatment,” he said. “It’s based in just a lot of fear and misconception.”

Being HIV-positive can still carry a powerful stigma. Since July 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened at least 49 investigations into alleged HIV discrimination. The department has won settlements from state prisons, medical clinics, schools, funeral homes, insurance companies, day care centers and even alcohol rehab centers for discriminating against HIV-positive people. Individuals with HIV may also fear that news of their status will spread to third parties, leading to rejection, embarrassment, or ostracism for themselves or even their loved ones.

In September, a disability rights group accused the Pea Ridge, Ark., school district of kicking out three siblings after officials learned that members of their family had HIV. The family’s lawyers declined to comment. The school district did not respond to requests for interviews but issued a statement acknowledging that it had “required some students to provide test results regarding their HIV status in order to formulate a safe and appropriate education plan for those children.”

In romantic or sexual settings, people with HIV often report fear of rejection, abandonment, and stigmatization.

“My first girlfriend in middle school — her mom banned her from seeing me, and it took me five years before I felt comfortable to try again,” said Reed Vreeland, a 27-year-old New Yorker who was born with HIV. Vreeland works as the communications coordinator for the Sero Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that campaigns against HIV exposure laws, which it denounces as “HIV criminalization.”

In 2006, Vreeland started dating a classmate at Bard College in upstate New York. He disclosed his HIV status on their second date.

“What’s going through your head is being scared of being rejected,” he said. “It’s scary to give someone that power.”

Vreeland and his girlfriend continued to date. Last spring, they married at a ceremony in the Bronx. “It took me a long time to propose, because I thought I would die,” he recalled. “I was saying, ‘Well, OK, why should I propose if I’m scared of dying in 10 years? And if we do have a kid, then I might die and leave my kid without a father, like I grew up without a mother.’”

The fear is “choking” and “silencing,” he said. “You’re conscious that saying three letters will change the way people will see you.”

In some cases, people with HIV have been met with violence — and even death — after disclosing their status. Last month, in Dallas, 37-year-old Larry Dunn was sentenced to 40 years in prison for murdering his HIV-positive lover. Police said he used a kitchen knife to stab and kill Cicely Bolden, a 28-year-old mother of two, after she told him about her HIV status. “She killed me,” he told investigators, according to his arrest warrant, “so I killed her.”

Until recently, criminal punishment was virtually unheard of for infectious diseases other than HIV. Federal and state officials have the authority to quarantine the sick to contain epidemics, but this power was typically granted to health authorities, who are versed in the latest science, not police and prosecutors. Very few criminal statutes take aim at diseases. At least two states have catchall laws against exposing others to “communicable diseases,” but only if exposure happens through routes most commonly associated with HIV, such as sex, sharing needles or donating blood. And while some states have laws that specifically punish exposure to tuberculosis, syphilis or “venereal diseases,” HIV exposure is almost always punished more severely.

But since 2007, three states have added hepatitis B and C to laws criminalizing HIV exposure. Those diseases are most prevalent among the same groups of marginalized people most at risk for HIV: intravenous drug users; gay men, especially those who are black or Latino; and black women.

Yet the laws may be unnecessary. In rare cases when someone intentionally tries to spread a virus, prosecutors have been able to put them away using ordinary criminal laws, such as assault or reckless endangerment. In 1997, a New York man named Nushawn Williams was accused of deliberately infecting at least 13 people, including two underage girls, with HIV. Williams pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory rape and one count of reckless endangerment. When his 12-year sentence ended in 2010, state officials kept him confined under laws that allow dangerous psychiatric patients to be locked up. He remains behind bars.

In Iowa, Rhoades’ case has prompted some lawmakers to reconsider whether exposing someone to HIV should carry such a heavy punishment.

“Putting somebody in prison for 25 years when they didn’t even transmit HIV is the most absurd thing that the state could be doing,” said Matt McCoy, an Iowa state senator who has introduced legislation to reduce the penalties. “It’s medieval.”

Even Plendl, the man Rhoades had sex with, thinks the law is too harsh. “Do I think he needs to be locked up forever?” Plendl asked. “No. Do I think these laws need to be revisited? Yes.”

[box title=Side Note]I personally have some experience with this myself. It's sad to say, but even in Canada, this type of law still gets followed by the Canadian courts as well. I posted this as a means of enlightening people to the realities that some of us who live with HIV must face and are always at risk of facing, even if the allegations are completely bogus. See this PDF for an example of exactly what I'm referring to. It outlines the case that I was involved with and had the unfortunate experience of actually having thrown at me. For the record, I had a damn good lawyer, so she managed to negotiate my sentence down to only 18 months (of which I had to serve 12).[/box]

Yes… I would count yourself as being quite lucky in that regard. The effects of Truvada that I have gone through for the last several years are quite unpleasant. That being said though, within the next month, I will be happy to announce that I will finally be changing off of Truvada due to the side-effects that I have experienced.

That being said though, the two other most common side-effects of Truvada are dry mouth and nausea. These side-effects of course aren't always going to hold true in every case due to the fact that everyone will respond to the drug differently, but they are a possibility. Some of the more uncommon side effects can include things like low bone density and liver failure. The odds of the liver failure though aren't really all that great. It is a risk nevertheless though.

@nordicblue:

Having HIV for 5 years does not make one an expert in immunology.

It kind of does actually becuase knowing the ins and outs of immunology is kind of a requirement in order to keep yourself alive. If you do knot know enough about the way that the human immune system works when living with HIV, you quite literally set yourself up for a most certain doom. Then again, what would I know? I've only been having to keep myself up to date with such things for the last 5 years becuase my life depends on it :lolp:

Why Thank You…

I've come to learn a long time ago that proper education on such subjects is the ultimate weapon in preparing yourself for how to handle and deal with such things.

Well…. It does indeed seem to reasonably prove that there is an elevated risk of dementia with obeasity, but I still don't know that one can reasonably say that obeasity inexorably causes dementia. It's at least reasonable to say that it could be considered a contributing factor, or that at the very least, it's an accelerant or catalyst for developping dementia. I'm still not convinced that there's a causal link between the two.

I will concur that your references do indeed point to findings of a co-relation between the two, and do provide some explanation of why this is believed to be. What I would be interested in looking at for argument sake is the genetic background of the people in question to see if its a common thing within their family that develops at that age, and if so, if the process seems to develop any sooner than the family history shows. Things like this are the reason why I say while there may appear to be a corelation on the surface, most studies often overlook other potential factors, and in some cases, completely omit other critical information. Now, I'm not saying that this is the case here, but I am saying that I think there's more information than what appears on the surface to take into account. This is often the flaw with many medical studies. So…. As I said, it may appear on the surface that there's a co-relation between obeasity and dementia, however given the information that is supplied, it leads me to question whether or not one can really establish a causal link between the two.

@nordicblue:

You should be prepared to debate your statements regarding T cells.  Einstein said a little knowledge is a dangerous thing because people have just enough rope to hang themselves.

I have been living with HIV for about 5 years now… Immune system functions are not something new to me at all. "T Cells" as they were once branded actually come in two different forms, namely CD4 and CD8. Generally speaking, when referring to said T cells, they're actually making reference to CD4 cells. There are two other factors that also do not seem to be taken into account with the reference to these cells. One of the biggest factors to take into account when assessing your "T leves" as they have labelled it is the saturation level. While you may have a high CD4/CD8 count, if the saturation (calculated in percentage) is too low, effectively, you won't have a proper defence against anything. By the same measure, you can have a substantially lower CD4 and/or CD8 count, but actually still be quite strong at fighting off any kind of foreign matter in your body, provided that the saturation level is where it should be.

The second factor to take into account when assessing your "T levels" as it were is your CD4/CD8 ratio. If your ratio is too far out of whack, once again, you open yourself up for a whole world of trouble. As a general rule, the CD4/CD8 ratio should be around 0.9 to 1.9. This ratio will also affect the saturation levels as well, which ultimately impact the CD4's effectiveness. These of course are only but 2 of the most major factors when assessing the "T levels". Simply put, the actual level or count alone by itself realisticaly is insufficient to get the full picture.

For these reasons, I don't quite know what to make about the following reference:

1. It makes you less manly. Say goodbye to your T levels if you’re obese.

I also fail to understand how testosterone or hormone levels have any impact on immune system function. Granted, it is possible for there to be an underlaying co-relation for which I am not aware, but based on the information that is given, I can't quite wrap my brain around how one impacts the other, much less why such a general and obviously broad statement relates to obeasity. The other thing that I noted that is a little troublesome to me about that is that before I went to jail, I was a skinny little fucker. At that time, my CD4 count was just barely over 600, however as I gained some weight, I noted that in my case, my CD4 count actually went up as I gained the weight. Granted, there are always exceptions to every rule, and not all people wil be affected in the same way, however I just find it odd that my particular observation seems contrary to what is stated here.

It just brings a lot of questions to mind…. hehe

While this is plausible, I do not understand how a co-relation somehow proves a causal link. Do you by chance have a reference to the original source for further reading?

Call me skeptical if you must, but there are a few things that came to my mind when I read the article.

The first and biggest thing that comes to my mind is how one thing causes another. Simply put, while they may find a co-relation, I fail to understand how a co-relation implies a causal link. For example, you can establish a co-relation between drinking an espresso and being obese, but that doesn't mean that drinking an espresso inexorably leads to becoming obese. Granted, I get the connection for obvious reasons, but some of the other references seem a little suspicious to me.

One such example is the link between the T cells (actually referred to as CD4 or CD8 cells) and obeasity just doesn't seem plausible to me. The fact that the original publisher refers to them as "T" cells only makes me wonder about how much scientific credibility that the study actually has…. Just sayin'

I know that not many people here will likely know anything about hosting a mail server, but I'm hoping that someone can fill in the blanks as Google doesn't seem to offer any assistance. At first, I ran into similar issues when Google first rolled out SPF record checking, which luckily, wasn't that hard to implement. I am now having similar issues. I cannot seem to find any rhyme, reason, or pattern to it, so I'm asking here in case someone has any experience with dealing with slime balls like Google.

The problem is that I seem to randomly have email messages from my server going to Google just randomly rejected. Every time this happens, I get the following error in my SMTP log:

550-5.7.1 [2002:45c4:af22:0:71be:3093:5a2e:f70912] Our system has detected 550-5.7.1 that this message is likely unsolicited mail. To reduce the amount of 550-5.7.1 spam sent to Gmail, this message has been blocked. Please visit 550-5.7.1 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188131 for 550 5.7.1 more information. x4si5477692igl.58 - gsmtp (in reply to end of DATA command)

As per what that page recommends, I have done every last bloody step in the process I have added the rules to Procmail just in case, and I have double checked my SPF records, which indicate that they pass. I have also gone as far as to setup a DKIM policy and have published the corresponding key in my DNS records. Despite all of this, I still get messages bounced back as "undeliverable" with this precise error.

Can anyone shead some light on why Google is pulling this kind of fuckery, and what I can do to make Google co-operate with my email services?

This may not be of much use to you directly, however I happen to have a couple of solutions to this….

The first is installing a NAS, which often comes built into some wireless routers. This will allow you to store the content on a virtual network path, which then allows you to control who has access to it. The other option is my server. I have stuff on there that I want to keep hidden from people and do not want to store directly on my laptop. This gives me an easy link into the server through the network, but ensures that the content that I don't want to be visible can be ruled out of the question through the use of username & password authentication. This way, people like my room mate can access the more public shared content on the server, but gets an Access Denied error when he attempts to open any of the shares that contain files that I do not wish others to view (such as porn).

While I may not know of a proxy service that's available in China, I do know of a few VPN services, which will render the same end result in the sense that they will make you appear to the internet to be using an IP address from within China. The downfall to most free proxy services is that they're not an anonymous proxy, which allows them to reveal your original IP address for tracking purposes, which may be why the connection is being rejected. A VPN (preferably PPTP) on the other hand will not expose your direct IP address in any manner, thus getting around that issue.

I would totally do it with a closetted married guy…... I have many times in the past. My only complaint about closetted married guys is that when they are introduced to a good cock sucker, they tend to blow their load in seconds. It's both sad and kinda cool all at the same time.

While I am not using Truvada as a PrEP drug, nor am I using it for Hep C, I am currently on it. I have been for a few years now. It's part of my regular regime for HIV.

As for your question about the effects and such, I will note one thing. It is true that Truvada when used as a PrEP drug does indeed reduce the risk factors of contracting HIV, however it does come with a few risks…. For example, if the person you are having sex with has a resistance to one of (or both of) the drug compounds found in Truvada (Emtricitabine & Tenofovir), the effectiveness of reducing the chances of infection are greatly reduced.

All that being said, from my personal experience I can tell you that Truvada is NOT a very pleasant drug to be on. One of the most common side effects of Truvada is chronic diarrhea. I unfortunatly happen to be one of the many people who got this side effect and I can say with certainty that it gets to a point where not even Lomotil is strong enough on some days to counter-balance that effect. One of the other most noted effects that Truvada has been known to have on the human body has to do with deteriorating the bone matter in some people, which causes low bone density, and thereby increases the risk of a fracture or a break resulting from something like a fall.

The other caution that I have with Truvada is that it is often most effective when paired with Norvir (Ritonavir), which acts as a booster to other medications. If this is the case, you must be very careful about what other substances that you put in your body, especially if they're amphetamine based because of the nature of the way that Norvir works when interacting with other medications. If this is the case (as it is with me), this can cause a number of unexpected problems when mixing other substances, including alcohol. That is my only caution to such a regime.

I know that this is kind of late to be posting a reply, but I couldn't help but add in some information that is commonly overlooked.

At this day and age, HIV is not at all what it once was… so the concept of HIV being "not all that bad" isn't entirely a myth. I myself have been living with it for over 5 years and counting now. That being said however, there are also some dangers that need to be taken into acount when assessing the risk factors and the extent of the risk you're willing to take. Too many people do not realize that such risks exist. So in short.... Yes... On one hand, HIV isn't so bad, but on the other hand, it opens the door for a number of potentially serious (if not fatal) issues. I will summarize the more critical ones below....

1) Toxoplasmosis: Toxoplasmosis is a bacteria that is most commonly found in kitty liter and bird droppings. It's main source comes from the consumption of meat (including fish) that has not been fully cooked or frozen. For the average person with a normal immune system, exposure to Toxoplasmosis will resolve itself on its own. That being said however, when Toxoplasmosis bacteria is introduced to HIV, a whole new world of trouble begins. There's an interaction that takes place over time (usually wihin a few months) between Toxoplasmosis and HIV that becomes quite problematic… namely, that it forms a bond with the cells infected with HIV in the blood stream, which are then passed to the brain for the final stages of exposure to begin. Simply put, over time, the combination of the two will literally eat away at the brian, causing regular bodily functions to become quite challenging over time, until it finally eats away at the brain slowly enough to slowly cause a cerebral hemorrhage. During this process, headaches, body ache, fatigue, and chronic pain become more and more of a problem until it literally kills you very slowly. It's actually quite a slow and horrible death. So... Unless you're willing to freeze your steaks or sushi (as two examples) before preparing them, when you're HIV+, eating such foods is quite literally gambling with your own life.

2) Pneumocystis Pneumonia: This is a particularly nasty form of pneumonia as it is, which if untreated has great potential to become fatal. When mixed with HIV, makes the severity of it even worse. More often than not, when this form of Pneumonia is mixed with HIV, it's fatal, and not a pleasant way to die. As it attacks the lungs, it becomes harder and harder to get rid of and can cause some serious and often painfully fatal respritory issues. With a compromised immune system, the mix of the two can cause a complete depletion of the body's CD4 cells, which are most critical to fighting off any kind of virus or bacteria forign to the human body. Once this happens, you then open the door to just about anything to add to the mix, which is part of what makes this combination fatal in most cases.

3) Liver Failure: Sadly, while most of the newer HIV meds on the market are quite effective at surpressing the HIV virus itself as to lead a normal and healthy life, they also are quite hard on the liver. As such, liver failure is a constant concern to anyone living with HIV on the meds. This is part of why blood work is taken so frequently to keep track of what is going on within your body chemistry. One of the worst offenders for this potential threat believe it or not is a drug called Truvada, which is a combination drug that includes both Emtricitabine (200mg) and Tenofovir (300mg). This is just one of many potential problems that these kinds of drugs present. In short, if you're on the HIV meds, you pretty well have to be worried about this possible complication. This obviously can be worsened if you add alcohol to the equation.

4) Chronic Diarrhea: Most people do not realize just how common of a side-effect that this is when using a lot of HIV drugs. As I mentioned in reason 3, Truvada one of the biggest offenders for this. I know this all to well from personal experience. The problem with this comes in whereas the strongest medication for such things available is Lomotil, which is stronger than Immodium. In most cases (such as mine), Lomotil alone is just not enogh to combat this side-effect. In some cases, this can result in moments of incontinence where you're fine one moment, and the next, your ass just explodes out of nowhere. This can be particularly embareassing if you're out in a public place when this happens. Again, I know this from experience too. Other issues can also stem from this problem as diarrhea is known for causing an excess amount of liquid (water) from the body to pass through the digestiv system, instead of absorbing into the body as it should. This can open the door potentially to having side-issues with dehydration at the same time as you're dealing with an explosive mess.

5) Cost of Meds: While it is true that most of the newer HIV meds on the market are effective at surpressing the HIV virus, if you live in an area that does not have any kind of medical funding assistance, you're suddenly faced with another problem… the cost of the medication itself. For example, the Prezista, Norvir, and Truvada (that keep me alive) alone run over $3000 for a 30-day supply. Unless you're rich like Bill Gates or if you have some kind of awesome drug care coverage, this can suddenly make your cost of living very expensive. To this day, there are still many people (even in North America) who have to go without these life saving meds, simply because they cannot afford to pay for them. This is the reality that you must face when you are diagnosed with HIV and must go on the meds.

Once you get past these issues (among a few others that I haven't listed), sure.... HIV isn't all that bad. There are a few other points that I would like to touch on as well....

@FlammeRouge:

Poor education / awareness is a more serious culprit. I've heard from a public health sex worker, whom I had a talk with very recently, is that gay teenagers think it's okay to have unprotected sex and actually getting infected with HIV isn't that serious. If you're already infected you don't have to use condoms, inside condoms, dental dams, gloves and the like, and that would be completely fine, and that there would be little to no reason for concern whatsoever, it's just that once you're not seropositive anymore you'll have to use medication. So these teens try to get infected with HIV purposefully. One of these methods is bareback sex, but oral sex and any other activity which causes exchange of bodily fluids also transmit HIV.

There are a few problems I have with this… The first is that I have learned the hard way that any Public Health organization will tend to help promote the stigma, and in some cases, actually gives outright wrong information with respect to prevention methods and risk factors for reasons that I have never quite understood. That being said though, the whole topic of condoms isn't as cut and dry as it may seem. Just being HIV+ alone doesn't actually mean all that much to the risk factor involved. If you're HIV+ and have an undetectable viral load, it is virtually impossible to infect someone, which means that the whole concept of bareback sex being a huge risk is flawed. While this is true with someone who is HIV+ with a high viral load engaging in unprotected sex is like playing with fire, this does not hold true with an undetecable viral load. This is one of the biggest things to take into accout when assessing risk factor.

Also, Truvada is also used as a PrEP drug, which can help substantially reduce the risk of contracting HIV. This kind of thing also plays a large factor when assessing your risk.... So.... In answering the original quetion, while it may be true that bareback porn has resulted in some HIV infections, it's just not realistic to go so far as branding it a "culprit" for HIV/AIDS.

@cwilbur:

Bareback sex is OK in the real world: when you're in a long-term monogamous relationship with a partner of the same sero-status, or a long-term closed relationship with two or more partners of the same zero-status.

Beyond that, the chances of a guy who's poz and successfully medicated transmitting HIV though unprotected sex are less than the chances of a guy who doesn't know his status transmitting HIV while using a condom – because guys who are actually poz but don't know their status have insanely high viral loads; combine that with the slightest bit of error in using a condom, and you've got a public health problem.

Even with one partner who is HIV+ and one who is not, bareback sex is not necessarily out of the question. As I mentioned, the viral load plays a large part in assessing the risk factor. You are also correct with respect to the risk factor being lower with someone who is medicated. This is both because generally speaking, people who are taking the HIV meds most often have an undetectable viral load. It also holds true in that while there may be exposure to HIV through uprotected sex, there's also a certain amount of exposure to the anti-bodies as well when they're on the medication, which also plays a part in reducing the risk. In short, calculating the risk factors can get quite complicated.

I kinda love tormenting people who don't know any better lol…. That's a perfect example hehe...

The chlorine alone in the pool will stop any possible outbreak of any such thing. Even without chlorine, they would have to actively have an open wound that woud leak a sufficient amount of blood in which to transfer directly into another open wound on the other person's body... Just the sheer physics of it are mind boggling  :hehe:

I know that this is kind of an old post now, but there is some issue with Google as of late….

See... Google first implemented the use of SPF record checking to verify that the email's origin is legitimate. Since then however, they have started to forcibly cram DKIM bullshit down the throats of mail server administrators. The sad thing is that even with a proper SPF record and a properly DKIM signed email message to verify its origin, Google seems to bounce emails at random with the error code 550-5.7.1, claiming that it's been bounced because it's "Most Likely SPAM". Of course, as a mail administrator myself, this is a bit of a piss off because there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason to when or why they bounce messages, and of course, absolutely no way in which to contact them.

This could be a part of the problem.

The short answer to your question is yes…. Approximately evey 30 minutes, your torrent client updates with the tracker and tells it how much data has been transferred since the last update. For this reason, it may take some time for information that you have transferred to actually be reflected on the tracker.

That being said, also be aware that the total UL/DL stats that you see in your torrent client also include network overhead traffic. As such, you may notice a small difference between what your torrent client reads, and what the tracker reads. Lastly, there's also the issue of session history. When you stop a torrent in your torrent client, your torrent client will still show that you've got some data transferred. When you start the torrent again, the numbers will not match because your torrent client will have kept track of the session stats for that particular torrent as it sits in your torrent client, however the tracker will keep track of the stats for that particular session, which gets reset every time you stop the torrent.

Just a heads up...

There is also a request re-seed button. A lot of times, this is an effective way of reviving such a torrent.

This seems to be a classic case of the common proxy issue that a lot of users are experiencing.

In short, most proxy servers will not work to connect to the system's back-end because of technical changes to the way that it works. In a nut shell, there is a re-direct that occurrs, which most proxy servers are incapable of picking up, which causes the packet to be dropped. Your best bet honestly is to invest a monthly fee into a VPN (PPTP Preferred) in order to get around this. It will stop you from being directly exposed to copyright trolls, but at the same time, will still allow you to connect to the servers.