HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS is a virus that infiltrates white blood cells and replicates until the cell is torn apart, and then the virus continues to attack other white blood cells. HIV really just means that you have the virus but it is under control, if too many white blood cells are destroyed then HIV becomes AIDS. Further more people who have AIDS do not die from AIDS, they die from the infections that the person is more susceptible to because of their degraded immune system. I also know that AIDS is a global epidemic which is mostly located in poor rural areas such as India and Southern Africa. A lot of the information I have gotten about HIV/AIDS have really been in passing from various health classes that I really did not pay attention in. HIV and other STIs where not really covered in my sex ed classes, just how to help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections/diseases. I’m hoping to learn about the major causes of wide spread HIV infection. I think that this class has alluded to the most prominent areas but I would like to know the actual cause of the wide spread infection and not just speculation. The most surprising thing to me is all the misinformation out there when regarding safe sex and condom use. There are interviews with people who say that they don’t use condoms because they don’t work, just a huge amount of misinformation.

Prostitution in Thailand

Thailand outlawed prostitution in 1960 but it still happens today. The Taiwanese government still holds prostitution to be illegal but regulates brothels. They have even implemented a 100% condom use initiative that keeps tabs on all the brothels making sure that every sexual encounter that could use a condom is done so with a condom. This is very contradicting in some ways because the Taiwanese government condemned brothels in the 60’s but is involved in them. However I am sure that the reason why the government has adopted this policy was to decrease the risk of transmission of HIV and other STI’s. This is a pretty big step in government public health because I think the Taiwanese government is the only government in the world that actually regulates safe sex in an environment such as that. This also brings up a big global health perspective because living in the US we are educated a lot on the risks of STIs but in other countries they do not see the risk of infection to be a significant one or the Taiwanese would not have to worry about implementing the 100% condom use policy. Even with that being said I still think that the state of Nevada should adopt the Taiwanese policy in order to promote safer sex.