Tag Archives: PEP

National HIV Testing Day: A Time to Empower Yourself and Get Tested

Posted on by

The following post comes to us via Ava Budavari-Glenn, a political communications major and a nonprofit communications minor who is entering her sophomore year at Emerson College. She is a writer whose work focuses mainly on advocacy, and a community organizer who has worked for nonprofit organizations and political campaigns. She is a media and communications intern at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

It was the 1980s. All of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, thousands and thousands of people were dying from an illness that had never been seen before. The diagnosis was a death sentence. As soon as you had it, you would die painfully and quickly. The disease was AIDS, caused by a virus called HIV.

In the United States, this disease ravaged the LGBTQ community; gay and bisexual men were the hardest hit. The Reagan administration failed to acknowledge the disease, until Ronald Reagan’s press secretary laughed about it and called it the “gay plague.” Tired of the government’s inaction, the people decided to take matters into their own hands and formed the grassroots organization ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in 1987.

With modern medical treatment, people with HIV can live pretty normal lives.

They protested, made targeted demands, and created poster campaigns. They formed a network of community organizers in cities across the country, and employed radical protest strategies, such as the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which covered the National Mall with names of people who had died from the disease. They focused their targeted efforts on specific politicians, as well as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They did such an extensive amount of research that the activists essentially became scientists themselves. They were able to lower drug prices and get the FDA to approve experimental drugs for HIV at a quicker pace. They educated, diminished social stigma, and perhaps most important, supported medical advances that reduced AIDS-related deaths.

And finally, in 1996, scientists discovered the treatment that turned HIV from a death sentence to a chronic illness. Finally, after 15 years of tragic deaths, obsessive scientific research, and fiery activism, patients could live long and happy lives with a drug “cocktail” that could suppress the virus. Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

Posted on by
  • Republican legislators in Arizona sure have a lot of nerve. They want to mandate that doctors performing abortions ask “why” a woman is terminating her pregnancy. What is the “why” behind this invasive questioning other than wanting to intrude upon the privacy of a woman undergoing a perfectly legal medical procedure? (AZ Central)
  • We at Planned Parenthood will always stress the importance of comprehensive sex education in schools. If you happen to think that sex education isn’t crucial to children’s development, I welcome you to read this disturbing but informative piece over at the New York Times. In the age of widespread smartphone access, young, impressionable kids are learning about sex from the worst source possible — online porn. (NY Times)
  • Speaking of the NYT, why does columnist David Brooks have such a fundamental misunderstanding of late-term abortions (and the fact that only slightly more than 1 percent of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later, according to the Guttmacher Institute) and the reasons women have them? This is a highly educated, privileged man with access to soooo many educational resources and statistics on the subject … It’s almost like he’s being willfully ignorant! (Slate)
  • How Trump’s Global Gag Rule Is Devastating Abortion Rights & So Much More One Year Later (Bustle)
  • Alarming news: Head and neck cancers caused by HPV are expected to outnumber cervical cancer cases in the next few years. (U.S. News & World Report)
  • Additionally, men infected with HPV-16, the type responsible for most HPV-related cancers, are 20 times more likely to be reinfected with the same type of HPV after one year. (Science Daily)
  • Thank you, Cosmo, for highlighting Planned Parenthood’s efforts to increase access to telemedicine abortion in 2018. Ensuring women have choices and access to safe procedures will always be a meaningful endeavor for us. (Cosmopolitan)
  • Women who were denied an abortion are three times more likely to be unemployed than women who were able to access one. Women’s access to reproductive health care has an undeniable economic impact! How many times do we have to highlight this connection? (Rewire)
  • Excuse me if I sound radical, but Trump and the Republicans’ war on Medicaid is tantamount to genocide of the poor. (Salon)

April 10 Is National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day

Posted on by

The following is a guest post by Planned Parenthood Arizona’s Director of Education Vicki Hadd-Wissler, M.A.

Young people born in the 1980s belong to the first generation to have never known a world without HIV and AIDS. The numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are alarming, with young people between the ages of 13 and 29 accounting for almost 40 percent of new HIV infections in the United States! In Arizona, people ages 25 to 29 had the highest infection rate (28.1 per 100,000), and people ages 20 to 24 come in second with 26.1 per 100,000. It is estimated that 13 percent of those infected with HIV (in all age groups) are unaware they are infected — and, among HIV-positive youth ages 18 to 24, an estimated 44 percent are unaware of their status.

Help the next generation know a world where AIDS no longer poses a threat to a vibrant, healthy future.

National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) on April 10 provides an excellent opportunity to discuss the importance of prevention, promote HIV testing, and help reduce the stigma often associated with HIV and STDs in general.

First organized in 2013 by Advocates for Youth, NYHAAD is intended to serve as an annual wake-up call to organize and educate young people about HIV and AIDS, and press leaders for investments in medical advancements and prevention strategies. The observance has received less attention nationally this year than in past years — no doubt due to the need to focus on saving the Affordable Care Act. But we can still be activists on the issue of HIV awareness. All of us have a young person(s) in our lives who we care deeply about. Let’s mark our calendars for April 10 as a day to commit to having a conversation with them to share important, life-enhancing information. Continue reading →

The Condom Broke. Now What?

Posted on by

oopsProtecting yourself with barriers like condoms is an important part of keeping yourself healthy when you and your partner don’t know one another’s STD status. Condoms are also great for pregnancy prevention. You can improve their effectiveness by learning how to put them on correctly, using a generous amount of lubricant, and checking their expiration dates.

But, sometimes, despite your best intentions, condoms break.

When that happens, you might wonder about your vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). And, if pregnancy is a possibility, you might also be concerned about sperm meeting egg. Luckily, there are still options. One, getting tested for STDs can help you receive treatment, if needed, in a timely manner. Two, if you act quickly, you can still take steps to minimize the risk of certain STDs or help avert an unwanted pregnancy.

Don’t let a broken condom immobilize you with fear! Take matters into your own hands, and learn what to do if a condom breaks.

How long does it take after a potential exposure until an STD test is likely to be accurate?

The answer to this question is: It varies. Each STD has a different “window period,” that is, the time it takes for an infection to be detectable. Some STDs can be tested for within days (if symptoms are present), while other STDs can take months to show up on a test. Also, while you might be inclined to wait and see if symptoms show up, remember that most STDs don’t have symptoms at all! When infections don’t have symptoms, they are said to be “asymptomatic.”

Check out this handy chart to see how long it takes for symptoms to appear, how common asymptomatic infections are, and how soon you should be tested.  Continue reading →

STD Awareness: HIV and AIDS

Posted on by

Our immune systems are beautiful things, refined through millions of years of evolution. The immune system’s complexity is testament to the “arms race” that has been taking place between our species and the harmful pathogens that surround us. Last century, a virus called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) emerged, and it found a weak spot in our immune system’s armor. HIV has been exploiting this weakness ever since, and an HIV infection can eventually progress to a disease called AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome. AIDS is a condition that disables our immune system’s ability to function properly, rendering us vulnerable to a host of opportunistic infections and cancers.

Even if you don’t think you’ve been exposed, HIV testing can be a good idea.

HIV is transmitted via bodily fluids: blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid (which can be present without ejaculation), breast milk, vaginal fluids, and rectal mucus. (It can also be present in bodily fluids like amniotic fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, and synovial fluid, to which health-care workers might be exposed.) The virus is not transmitted by fluids like snot, saliva, sweat, tears, and urine — unless blood is present.

Activities that can bring you into contact with HIV-infected bodily fluids include injection drug use and sexual activities like anal, vaginal, or oral sex. It can also be transmitted to a fetus or baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. In the early days of HIV, many infections occurred as a result of blood transfusions or organ transplants — though nowadays this is a rarity thanks to tissue screening. Lastly, health-care workers might be exposed to HIV through accidents involving needlesticks or cuts. Continue reading →