I was shocked and dissapointed to read this report from the BBC this morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20526380
Other than advice contained within "specialist" gay men's publications, I cant remember when I last seen an HIV public information film on the TV.
I remember when HIV was starting to be diagnosed, and all the TV coverage and information notices that were put out there. I can't honestly remember when I seen the last one 
It scared me then, and I count myself lucky to have come through the 80's & 90's unscathed, although I do have a few friends who have been diagnosed.
Do we need to step up HIV awareness programmes, especially around the younger population who probably think it will never happen to them?
ObW
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Yes we need to up the awareness of HIV in the UK, but also we need to battle the ignorance in youth who think they're never going to catch or have any sort of disease/infection. The problem with HIV awareness is that people need to be educated that its not only gay men who can catch it. Sex Education classes in schools aren't working because they're seen as more of a joke, when I was in school I don't remember people paying much attention at all. We need a massive overhaul in the UK to change the way that youth think in several areas for this to even start being effective.
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OlderButWiser Wrote:I was shocked and dissapointed to read this report from the BBC this morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20526380
Other than advice contained within "specialist" gay men's publications, I cant remember when I last seen an HIV public information film on the TV.
I remember when HIV was starting to be diagnosed, and all the TV coverage and information notices that were put out there. I can't honestly remember when I seen the last one
It scared me then, and I count myself lucky to have come through the 80's & 90's unscathed, although I do have a few friends who have been diagnosed.
Do we need to step up HIV awareness programmes, especially around the younger population who probably think it will never happen to them?
ObW
People build homes, whole cities in the shadow of known active Volcanoes. People live in trailers in Tornado Alley. People moved back into the bowl which is New Orleans after Katrina. People build houses on sandy hill sides that have demonstrated time and time again that they slide. People build and live in flood plains and go right back and rebuild after their house is hit by a major flood.
The Titanic Tragedy is not an abnormal event, if anything it is how business is done. Every ship builder, ever ship company knew 110% knew that their massive ships did not have enough life boats, and the governments knew it - but they didn't step up to the plate and make new rules, knowing full well that the old rules were not cutting it - until after 1,502 people died one April night needlessly due to the lack of lifeboats, due to the lack of caution, due to many lacks which many people warned about before it happened.
This is humanity doing business as usual.
Why? Because no one believes its going to happen to them.
I don't care if you paper every square inch of space with dire warnings about what happens if you do not wear a condom - people are going to go out and bareback because its fun and they believe they are immortal.
Everyone already knows that there are risks with sex. No one has forgotten about the gay plague, we are reminded by fundamentalists and other idiots on near daily basis that the wages for the sin of homosexuality is a death sentence with AIDS. (That is how they put it).
In the late 80's and early 90's when I was passing out free condoms (while wearing a collar no less and even) people snickered, people laughed, people passed up on free balloons, even when I stood their and told them that all it takes is one drop of blood, one drop of semen to pass on the HIV, they laughed because they knew that they were immune.
That is humanity doing business as usual too.
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OlderButWiser Wrote:I was shocked and dissapointed to read this report from the BBC this morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20526380
Other than advice contained within "specialist" gay men's publications, I cant remember when I last seen an HIV public information film on the TV.
I remember when HIV was starting to be diagnosed, and all the TV coverage and information notices that were put out there. I can't honestly remember when I seen the last one
It scared me then, and I count myself lucky to have come through the 80's & 90's unscathed, although I do have a few friends who have been diagnosed.
Do we need to step up HIV awareness programmes, especially around the younger population who probably think it will never happen to them?
ObW
The Government has a lot to answer for regards this.
Why?
Because the government use our tax money to pay for the treatment of any Foreign national arriving in the country, legal or other wise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/health...e-NHS.html
Why have the numbers of people with HIV gone up so dramatically? Because the government have invited the worlds HIV infected to pop over to old Blighty and get the medication for free.
Not only are we paying for the medication of people that have never paid a penny into the pot, these people are also having unprotected sex with the aim of spreading the disease.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/new...dreds.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...ailed.html
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Hey Marc,
I hear what your saying, but it still takes two people having unprotected sex to spread the disease, and unless its forced unconsensual sex, at least one of them has a choice to protect themselves (the Sun article doesn't mention rape anywhere in the story)
My problem is that I think the dangers associated with HIV have somehow been diluted to the point where people don't perceive it as a risk any longer. And thats across all sexual preferences!
ObW
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I know what you are saying, and I agree completely.
But my point, that I didn't make very well, was how many of these new cases recorded are actually people born and bred in the UK, or are they simply migrants that are now being included in the figures?
Agreed Education needs to be looked at, but so do the make up of the numbers of cases.
If the number of new cases in British people is the same average as previous years, but the increase is in the migrant population, then that is surely where the Government should focus?
The only way we can know for sure is by the Government allowing us to see the full breakdown of the infected's ethnic status, which will never happen, simply because minority groups instantly brand that as racist.
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Corsac Wrote:Yes we need to up the awareness of HIV in the UK, but also we need to battle the ignorance in youth who think they're never going to catch or have any sort of disease/infection. The problem with HIV awareness is that people need to be educated that its not only gay men who can catch it. Sex Education classes in schools aren't working because they're seen as more of a joke, when I was in school I don't remember people paying much attention at all. We need a massive overhaul in the UK to change the way that youth think in several areas for this to even start being effective.
For things to change, this has to be done seriously and with great empathy and professionalism. It's a form of education that is so close to the core, that it needs to be dealt with respectfully and non judgementally. No religious groups should be associated, I believe. It should, preferably, be taught by doctors and nurses and maybe psychologists, or even sex therapists, who won't be afraid of calling a spade a spade and to look at the hard facts (no pun meant here).
There has been talk about including the world of porn in this education and I believe it might be effective if well explained. There are so many who fall for the lousy tricks that porn uses to get you aroused. Sex in real life is far from being so easy, or available as porn makes it out to be. But there are still a lot of hurdles to jump before anything like this happens. It means a real change of mentality. Maybe it also means doing this education separately (at times), keeping boys together and girls together so they don't have to be embarrassed by the other gender's observation or mockery. Then it would also be necessary to have classes where both genders are present. It would be good for people to realise that there are such people as hermaphrodites, and transgendered people too.
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Oh my goodness those statistics are very alarming, one in twenty is a huge ratio.
Certainly nothing to sneeze at , time to bring the awareness campaign back into full swing.
Have they stopped doing the back trace when they find a new diagnosis?
Terrible new.
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Marc Wrote:I know what you are saying, and I agree completely.
But my point, that I didn't make very well, was how many of these new cases recorded are actually people born and bred in the UK, or are they simply migrants that are now being included in the figures?
The vast majority of them, the actual incidence amongst immigrants to the UK has decreased over the past few years, while the new infection rate amongst those born in the UK has remained steady. Infections acquired outside of the UK account for a pretty insignificant portion of the MSM cases, and there has been an upward trend in the last few years.
http://www.hpa.org.uk/hpr/archives/2012/news1612.htm
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Yes I'm afraid it's just very careless sexual relationships... where people are no longer taking precautions, despite everything we know.. They think it's no longer a debilitating disease. But the fact remains that it IS!!
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