Sex, drugs, stigma put Thai transsexuals at HIV risk

"Thanakorn, or Gigi, packs condoms with leaflets before giving them to transgender people at The Poz Home Center in Bangkok. From a cafe near the go-go bars of a Bangkok red light district where she campaigns for safe sex, Gigi gives an unvarnished view of how she joined Thailand's growing ranks of transgender people with HIV" title

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Rapid HIV Test Could Reduce Stigma and Curtail Disease

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched an initiative to motivate people to get tested for HIV. A free rapid test is being offered in select pharmacies nationwide, within their small clinics, which involves a swab test that renders results in approximately 20 minutes, the Associated Press reports. If the result is positive, the patient is sent to a department of health or other clinic to have the result confirmed by blood test.

With an estimated 1.1 million Americans infected with the disease and an estimated 20 percent of them unaware, this is a wise move to help to curtail the spread of the disease. So many people are unaware of the facts about HIV and AIDS that perhaps being confronted by the testing center and the information offered there will prompt people to know more. In the back of so many minds is the fear the possibility of infection exists.

Too many people still believe HIV and AIDS are the disease of gay men and drug users. While statistics still confirm these groups are still at higher risk, the truth is the condition is increasing in women, particularly minority women. HIV is more easily spread from man to woman because the virus exists in a man's semen, which can live inside the vagina for several days. But the female bodily fluids from which a man can contract the virus through intercourse with a woman have more limited means to enter the penis and infect a man's body.

In order for this condition to be dealt with, the stigma must decrease. There have been tremendous strides made in regard to treating the disease, making it possible for those infected to live productive and happy lives, to enjoy careers and have families. In fact, with treatment, the chances of a woman passing along the virus to her unborn child are reduced to as low as 2 percent.

Symptoms of the illness often don't appear for nearly 10 years in many patients. It is important to be tested for this virus, regardless of whether any sexual partners "appear" to be ill and whether a person has had few or several partners. It's better to know early. Though there is no cure, treatment is possible to help to maintain a normal life.

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Once-Obese Women Still Face Stigma, Study Finds

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago WEDNESDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Even after they shed their excess pounds, formerly obese women still have to contend with "anti-fat prejudice," according to a new study.

Researchers asked young women and men to read about women who had either lost 70 pounds of excess weight or had stayed the same weight (weight-stable), and who were either currently obese or currently thin.

The participants were then asked about some of the women's attributes, including their attractiveness.

"We were surprised to find that currently thin women were viewed differently depending on their weight history," study leader Janet Latner, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in a news release from the University of Manchester, in England. "Those who had been obese in the past were perceived as less attractive than those who had always been thin, despite having identical height and weight."

The participants also showed greater bias against obese people after they had read about women who had lost weight, compared to after reading about weight-stable women -- regardless of whether the weight-stable women were thin or obese.

The findings, published May 29 in the journal Obesity, suggest that the stigma of obesity is so powerful that it can continue even after an obese person has lost weight.

The researchers said they were particularly troubled by the finding that participants' negative attitudes towards obese people increased when they were falsely told that body weight is easily controlled.

"The message we often hear from society is that weight is highly controllable, but the best science in the obesity field at the moment suggests that one's physiology and genetics, as well as the food environment, are the really big players in one's weight status and weight loss," study co-author Kerry O'Brien, from the University of Manchester School of Psychological Sciences and Monash University in Melbourne, in Australia, noted in the news release.

"Weight status actually appears rather uncontrollable, regardless of one's willpower, knowledge and dedication. Yet many people who are perceived as 'fat' are struggling in vain to lose weight in order to escape this painful social stigma. We need to rethink our approaches to, and views of, weight and obesity," O'Brien noted.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases offers advice about choosing a safe and effective weight-loss program.

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