Ask Zax: Neg for POZ?

Dear Todd,

I met this cool guy. We’d been chatting online for months now, and today we finally hung out. It was a very pleasant day and we spent 9 hours together. The date ended with us pretty much making out. Since it was apparent we were on the road to much sexier things, I stopped and asked him, “Are you safe and clean?” He was hesitant at first, but then told me that he was HIV positive.

I didn’t freak out and run away because I know it must of been hard for him to be honest and tell me—which I really admire—so we spent the rest of the night watching a movie, making out some more, and cuddling. Then before I went home he asked if I was going to see him again, and I said sure.

Choosing Survival

"Swimming With The Polar Bears" was not the feel-good-save-the-planet pitch I expected to see as part of a recent Earth Day celebration. In fact the one-man show written and performed by Mel England, was anything but light and airy. It was instead a story about survival.

England, a twenty-year HIV and AIDS veteran, recently overcame a battle with cancer where he was faced yet again to fight for his right to live.

Alternative Medicine Goes Mainstream

At one of the nation's top trauma hospitals, a nurse circles a patient's bed, humming and waving her arms as if shooing evil spirits. Another woman rubs a quartz bowl with a wand, making tunes that mix with the beeping monitors and hissing respirator keeping the man alive.

They are doing Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible energy fields. The anesthesia chief, Dr. Richard Dutton, calls it "mystical mumbo jumbo." Still, he's a fan.

On A POZitive Note: The Medical Maelstrom

Choosing a health care plan is frustrating. Choosing one when you’ve just been diagnosed HIV positive and haven’t had health insurance for over ten years is scary. For instance I bet you didn't know that if you've had more than a three-month break in coverage, most insurance companies have a mandatory 12 month coverage block on all “pre-existing conditions” and being diagnosed HIV positive, or having cancer, or even diabetes falls under the heading of “pre-existing.” 

“Well, just don’t tell them” said a friend, but they have ways of finding out - like requesting medical records from doctors - so you can’t hide the facts. 

Helping Doctors Ask About Drug, Alcohol Problems

If more doctors started asking, would more drug and alcohol abusers 'fess up so they could get help?

It's a huge irony of health care: Go to the emergency room and you'll be asked about a tetanus shot, even though "most of us have never seen a case of tetanus," says Dr. Gail D'Onofrio, emergency medicine chief at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Yikes, Bedbugs!

"Don't let the bedbugs bite." Doesn't seem so bad in a cheerful bedtime rhyme, but it's becoming a really big problem now that the nasty critters are invading hospitals, college dorms and even swanky hotels. With the most effective pesticides banned, the government is trying to figure out how to respond to the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II.

Company Says Prostate Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise

An experimental treatment that takes an entirely new approach to fighting prostate cancer extended survival in a late-stage study, its maker announced Tuesday.

Seattle-based Dendreon Corp. said that its Provenge cancer vaccine improved overall survival when compared to a dummy treatment in a study of 512 men with advanced disease.

No survival details or information on side effects were given. Full results will be presented at an American Urological Association meeting later this month, and Dendreon said it would seek federal approval of the treatment later this year.

Studies of 'Good' Fat Could Help With Weight Loss

Fight fat with fat? The newest obesity theory suggests we may one day be able to do just that.

Just like good and bad cholesterol, there apparently are good and bad types of body fat. Scientists until recently believed this good fat, which spurs the body to burn calories to generate body heat, played an important role in keeping infants warm but by adulthood was mostly gone or inactive.

Responsible Education about Life Act Re-Introduced

The Responsible Education about Life (REAL) Act was re-introduced today in the 111th Congress. The bill, sponsored by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), would authorize federal funding for comprehensive and medically accurate sex education.

How Gay is this? Targeting LGBT Smokers to Quit

The LGBT community has a lot of health disparities, to be sure. And if one were to tick off the top-of-the-mind health concerns facing our community, I bet that HIV/AIDS, drug use, and alcohol would be listed right up top.

But how about smoking? Would that come to mind as a serious health threat to our community? It should. According to the CDC, over 30,000 LGBT Americans die from smoking related illnesses each year – that's more than the number who die from an HIV/AIDS related illness.