Youth Radio - Topic: HIV

College Students Reflect On 30 Years Of HIV/AIDS

brett — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:48:04 -0500

This story was broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered on 6/3/2011, and was originally published on Turnstyle News..

A lot has changed since the 80’s. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t born until 1991 – the same year Magic Johnson announced that he had HIV. I’m 19 now, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people joke that Magic Johnson discovered the cure to AIDS…money.

Katherine Hood knows the same joke. She’s a senior at UC Berkeley and has grown up knowing about the disease her whole life. Regardless of the jokes, we both know HIV is still deadly serious. “I think it’s interesting because while I don’t think it’s the same sort of death sentence mentality,” says Hood, “To me if I actually stop and think about it, it still seems like a horrifying thought.”

Hood and lots of kids we talked to say their school Sex Ed classes were pretty good. Thanks to my school’s health classes, I had seen a condom by the 7th grade and knew what it was for. My mom even bought me a book called Deal With It. I remember my friends coming over after school to giggle about stick figure illustrations of sexual positions.

Sex and STDs weren’t a mystery for me, but that’s not the experience had by some students, like UC Berkeley senior Tori Partridge. She explains, “I went to this little private Catholic school and our Sex Ed was basically ‘Hey these are the diseases you can get. Don’t have sex.’ So I just sort of went into this world unprepared.”

The benefit of being in my generation is that we can turn to Google for answers. But no amount of research can prepare a person to ask their sexual partner if they’ve been tested. Nicki Ghafari is sitting at a food court in downtown Berkeley with friends. They graduated from a local Catholic high school just last Sunday, and are headed to college this fall. Ghafari knows they’re supposed to ask about their partner’s sexual heath, but the idea still makes her uncomfortable. “If you ask someone, it’s like they’re dirty in a way, like they’re gross,” she says, “personally I feel like whoever you’re with, you should ask.”

At Laney College in downtown Oakland, junior Salvador Lopez has a little more experience with this situation. He says he wasn’t afraid to have the conversation with his sexual partner, “It wasn’t awkward. They just shot the question right back, and I was like ‘I’m good.’ These are questions you still have to ask, no matter how comfortable you are with one another, just to be safe.”

My friend Elizabeth Welsh, a junior at Mills College wants to be safe, but she feels like the talk around prevention never includes her. Welsh is a lesbian who isn’t embarrassed to admit that she has, “a lot of unprotected sex.” She says, “I talk about aids and I’m informed, but at the same time I’m not using a condom in my sex. So what am I going to do? You think about it and the fears there are but how do you get passed that.” Welsh thinks prevention is mainly geared towards straight people and gay men.

No matter who you are, the saddest part about getting tested for HIV today, is that you’re not only worried about your test results, but you’re still terrified about what people might say, as least that the case for me. David Villamarina, a student at Laney College, agrees. “People get made fun of for having an STD or STI. People are judged.”

While treatments have progressed dramatically in the last 30 years, Villamarina says that society is hung up on wrong things. “We will want to be more focused on what we can do to stop it, instead of who has it. It’s not about the people who already got it. The people who already got it, they got it.”

That’s today anyway. My hope is that 30 years from now, people who “got it,” won’t have it forever.

Safe-Sex Kits Banned at School

denise — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:00:42 -0600

A school in New Hampshire will no longer allow Safe-sex kits to be handed out at school. The kits contain flavored lubricant, candy, and condoms. The kits were passed out last month during a special presentation by AIDS Services during World AIDS day. Approximately 70 students took the kits home, making parents of the school extremely upset.

School officials approved the kits but weren’t aware of what it contained. The group has since been banned from the school district.

I can understand why parents may be upset, but at the same time it’s better to be protected than contracting any kind of disease. Let’s not forget that young people are often curious and sometimes pressured into trying things, and sex is not an exception.

According to CDC, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 18,000 people die of AIDS each year in the United States and one in five people living with HIV don’t know they're infected. Honestly, I'd rather give kids color and flavored preservatives, than have them be part of those statistics. Let’s also not forget, that as a group, women account for 27 percent of new HIV infections every year, and 25 percent of those living with HIV.

Youth Are The Focus In HIV Fight In Nigeria

rgee — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:14:24 -0500

The youth voice is getting louder and louder in the fight against HIV in Nigeria. For the past five years, there has been an annual National Conference on HIV / AIDS: Youth Programme in Nigeria, but for the first time this past May the conference included a youth forum. The website for the conference reads:
[The youth forum] will bring together young people from across Nigeria, Africa and beyond to discuss their challenges and make their presence felt in a major regional event. The forum will provide the spring board for action towards future regional events The theme of the conference “The Nigeria HIV Response: Ownership and Sustainability” reflects the centrality and indispensability of young people to the national HIV/AIDS response.”

It’s empowering to hear that youth are considered indispensable in the fight against HIV in Nigeria. A big effort is also underway to reach the younger demographic in Nigeria. Just last year, a new character named Kami, appeared on Sesame Street in Abuja, Nigeria. Kami is a five-year old who is HIV positive.

Kami has actually been on Sesame Street in South Africa for eight years already, but just made her debut in Nigeria recently. She is part of an educational initiative that aims to reach out to children who have been orphaned by HIV, and provide them with resources. According to UNICEF, 1.8 children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Nigeria.

The segment of the show will be called, “The Adventures of Big Bird and Kami,” and the two characters will talk with and feature many Nigerian children telling stories of their lives in their communities, according to an article on the Animation World Network. I don’t think we can underestimate the power of our favorite Muppets to influence future generations in good ways.

Get Tested for HIV - Kaiser Permanente, Youth Radio Team up to Promote HIV Testing

noah — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:03:40 -0500

A quarter of a million Americans are living with HIV but don't know they're carrying the virus. One-third of people newly infected with HIV are under 30. African-Americans represent 68% of reported AIDS cases among teens. All reasons that Kaiser Permanente devoted over $500,000 last year to working with local nonprofits to encourage youth to get tested for HIV. Partnering with Youth Radio and community youth from organizations we support, Kaiser Permanente created this video on the myths and realities of HIV testing—and why 20 minutes of your time might just save your life. For more information on Kaiser Permanente's work in the community: www.kp.org/communitybenefit . For a local free HIV testing site near you: www.freehivtest.net .

Fatalistic Teens Increase Risk of HIV Infection

cfoster — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:53:23 -0500

John was the kind of teenager who’d drive 100 miles per hour without a seatbelt and jump into a pool from the second story of a building. What his parents said no to, he’d do ten times harder.

“I didn’t think I’d live past 21,” says John, who asked us not to use his real name. “I had alcohol poisoning at 15, I was in a coma one stage away from death.”

Adults always say people my age think we’re immortal, and that’s why we take crazy risks. But for John, who’s now 25, it was the opposite.

“People here are so used to seeing people their own age die, that life isn’t as valuable a thing as it should be, especially here in Oakland,” John says. “They’re numb, there’s no emotion there anymore because it’s so common.”

There’s some new research that backs up John’s point. A study this summer from the University of Minnesota reports 1 in 7 teenagers in the US thinks he or she only has a 50-50 shot of making it past 35. That alone may not be so surprising. But what stands out in the research are the consequences of low life-expectancy.

“We also found that those who predicted in the first interview that they would die earlier, were more likely in the later years to begin engaging in these risky behaviors,” says Dr. Iris Borowsky, the study’s lead author.

Youth who thought they’d die young were seven times more likely than their more hopeful counterparts to contract HIV/AIDS. Dr. Borowsky says pediatricians like her should screen their patients about how they view their futures.

“If I find that I have a patient who does not see a long road of opportunity ahead of them, this may be an indicator of multiple issues that deserve attention and also an opportunity to intervene to prevent risky behaviors including behaviors that are associated with HIV AIDS enough to improve health outcomes,” Borowsky says.

Kevin Bynes runs youth services at the aids project of the east bay, and he sees risky behavior first hand—and its effects.

“We talk about violence, substance abuse, a variety of poverty issues, but we rarely talk about HIV as one of those things,” says Bynes. “And it's a growing problem in this area and in the Bay Area.”

The rate of new HIV infections among teens is a problem nation-wide, according to a study released this summer by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of AIDS diagnoses for males age 15 to19 has doubled in the past ten years, and as of 2006 about 22,000 youth are living with AIDS.

Last December, after 10 years of reckless behavior, John became part of the statistic.

“I had been with somebody who had contracted an STD,” John recalls. “And as a precaution I went into a clinic to get tested just to make sure I was OK. When I was there I was offered an HIV test separately from all the STD tests I had taken. It seems like all the STD things came back negative, but the HIV test came back as positive.”

John says he’s still in shock from the diagnosis. The timing of it all made it extra painful, since he says he’d just stopped running wild when he got the bad news. Researchers are hoping their findings will lead to earlier intervention with young people like John whose fatalistic views put them at risk. So that next trip to the doctor’s office results in a discussion about future goals rather than an HIV diagnosis.

Previously:

Ankitha Bharadwaj's story was produced by Youth Radio and BeyondTheOdds.org. It comes to you from Public Radio Makers Quest 2.0, an initiative of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio, Incorporated. This project is made possible with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Budget Crisis Worries HIV-Positive Youth

cfoster — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:37:46 -0500

School is out, and like many 14-year-olds in San Francisco, Carina Aguilar is looking forward to summer – going to the movies, playing basketball and traveling to Utah with her family for a kayaking trip.

“I will have a really busy summer,” says Aguilar, who wears her dark brown hair in a pony tail and talks in a soft voice.

But the summer would be more fun, she says, if she didn’t have to worry about her HIV medication. She gets monthly shipments of meds delivered to her house. Drugs can cost anywhere from $250 to $5000 per month for somebody living with HIV.

State-funded HIV/AIDS programs are among the health and social services that hang in the balance in the coming weeks as California lawmakers try to close the state’s $24 billion budget deficit. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in May proposed an $80 million cut to the Office of AIDS; the Legislature this month pushed back with $35 million in cuts. Meanwhile, young people are trying to make sense of what it will mean for them and other youth, a population that accounts for about half of all new HIV infections.

Diagnosed at birth, Carina’s not sure how she contracted the virus: “I think it was because my mom did not have as much protection, so that’s probably how I got it. Otherwise, my stuff got in by breast milk.”

Thanks to a constant regime of medications paid for by Medi-Cal, Carina’s been able to keep her viral count so low, it barely even shows up through testing.

“If it is undetectable it means that you are really healthy,” she says. “Your immune system is healthy, basically your whole body is healthy.

It also means Carina’s less infectious than someone with a high viral load. And less burdened by what sets her apart.

“The only time that I am reminded that I have HIV is when I'm drinking my medicine,” she says.

Despite her anxiety about state cuts to AIDS programs, Carina’s lucky. Her Medi-Cal benefits aren’t likely to be affected by the proposed cuts. But 24-year-old Ricardo, who didn’t want me to use his last name, can’t count on those protections.

“I know I am one of those patients that I have to have medication,” he says. “If not my life is at jeopardy.”

Ricardo says he’s not eligible for California’s Medicaid program because of his salary. If his drug costs go up, or if he loses his job as an AIDS outreach worker due to program cuts “my medication would cost more than my rent,” he says. “So it would either be my life or be on the streets.”

“We've seen what it means for people not to have treatment for a while,” says Kevin Bynes, youth services director at the AIDS Project for the East Bay. “We've seen the people get diagnosed one week and then be dead the next. The drugs that are used to manage HIV for many people are the only lifeline.”

And the prevention and testing programs that get state funding are often the only way HIV negative young people learn how to stay that way. So while the Governor says California faces a “worst case scenario” with this budget crisis, young people living with HIV/AIDS, or trying to avoid it, are hoping the situation doesn’t get even worse.

Arai Buendia's story was produced by Youth Radio and BeyondTheOdds.org. It comes to you from Public Radio Makers Quest 2.0, an initiative of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio, Incorporated. This project is made possible with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Days Late & Dollars Short

ahowell — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:13:11 -0500

California state health officials announced plans over the weekend to investigate an HIV outbreak within the porn industry. Last Wednesday, June 10th, a San Fernando Valley based health clinic announced that one actress contracted HIV, and since then, 16 other infections have been confirmed.

Ironically on the same day the positive test results were announced, LA County health officials announced plans to offer free in home STD testing kits to women within the county.While the kits aren’t available to men, and test mainly for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, their availability marks a huge step in STD prevention.

Meanwhile the Los Angeles Convention Center hosted Erotica LA, one of the adult film industries “big shows,” where you could find every adult toy, DVD, T-Shirt, actress, and production company, as well as tattoo parlor and medical marijuana clinic information, but not one booth providing information about STD prevention.

When I identified myself as a journalist to some of the actresses, they agreed to talk to me, but when I began asking about STD prevention practices, the mood instantly changed and all of a sudden I was some sort of creep, and no more questions could get answered. I can’t really fault the ladies for their discomfort, because at the convention, STD prevention was out of sight, and out of mind. In fact, the convention offered seminar after session promoting the enhancement of one’s sex life, but no workshops on enhancing the safety of one’s sex life. If STD prevention had a more visible role in the industry infections-- and probes into them which use state resources-- could be avoided.

The closest thing to STD prevention at the convention was an entrepreneur showcasing his personal condom dispenser and offering free prophylactics. Also in attendance was the PAW (Protecting Adult Welfare) organization, whose primary focus is to protect the mental well being of adult entertainment workers in all their capacities. “Once you enter ‘the biz,’ your mental health is immediately [damaged],” William Margold, founder of the PAW, told me. When I pointed out to him the fact that there was no STD prevention information booths Margold, who also helped found AIM (Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation) organization that sets the testing standards throughout the adult industry, joked that the authorities always want to “enforce us with one hand, and [enjoy our product] with the other.”

Maybe the State, instead of handling the adult industry's practices with STD prevention, should give counties, like LA, a hand in helping prevent STD spread among ALL of us.

World AIDS Day

caitlin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:58:42 -0600

Today is World AIDS Day, a day to recognize the international impact and important of HIV/AIDS and spread awareness about the issue. The day was first founded in 1988 by Johnathan Mann of the World Health Organization (WHO). Each year World AIDS Day has a theme, and this year, on its 20th anniversary, the theme is "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Lead - Empower - Deliver". For the past four years the theme has been headlined by "Stop AIDS", as opposed to the earlier themes such as "Stigma and Discrimination" (2002/2003) or "Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS" (2004) that seemed to focus more on awareness than action. Perhaps this is so because we are getting closer and closer to discovering the cure to AIDS and solving the epidemic. Over the past few years, as the campaign has become more intense and widespread. In fact, doctors in Germany claim to have found the "cure" through a bone marrow transplant they gave a man with both AIDS and leukemia, who since the transplant, has shown signs of neither. This, along with fast-spreading global awareness of the epidemic, offer hope for the end of the disease.

Did you know?
I found shocking statistics on Avert:

-Africa has 11.6 million AIDS orphans.
-There were 33 million people living with AIDS in 2007.
-Young people (under 25 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.
Global Health Reporting
-59 percent of women over the age of 15 in sub-saharan Africa are living with AIDS.
-In 2006, although Whites made up 66 percent of the U.S. population, they only accounted for 30 percent of the AIDS diagnoses.

Friends Are The New Lovers

nate — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:02:45 -0600

FWB-Friends With Benefits. Does it really work? The "What's The New What?" team got together with some of our favorite "New What" bloggers to talk about the "Friends With Benefits" phenomenon.

What's the New What? Sex Without Condoms Is The New Engagement Ring

kara — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:38:40 -0500

By Pendarvis Harshaw, Youth Radio

What's the new what? Sex without a condom is the new engagement ring.

My generation has known the threat of HIV/AIDS our entire lives, and sex without a condom isn't something we enter into lightly.

For a lot of my friends, the transition from having sex with to sex without a condom, is seen as a symbolic "engagement." It shows trust, commitment, and the prospect of a shared future; an engagement more practical than spending money on a piece of jewelry for a marriage that might not pass the test of time.

Now close your eyes and envision that classic love story…

Engagement two point O goes something more like this, first a couple has an intense sit down, during which they decide if they're ready to trash those Trojans. If things are right to take that plunge, they swap that trip down the aisle for a hand-n-hand down a health clinic hallway, where they get screened for STDs and choose a method for birth control - such as pills, patches, or shots. Loosing the latex doesn't mean that young folks are looking to have babies. On the contrary, the majority want to steer clear of children and disease while enjoying the pleasures of healthy sex.

Ayesha:
To have sex without a condom is to say that I trust you and I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you

Anyi:
If I make a decision to you know skip the condom process, then you know it's safe to say I love you, without me saying that.

Lauren:
You know a ring is very temporary and you can sort of just take that ring off. Whereas you know if you don't use condoms and you get an STD, then it's sort of a much less temporary result of your engagement than a tan line on your finger.

Do you take this disease-free person to be your sexual partner?

I do

By the power vested in me, I now pronounce sex without a condom…the new engagement ring.