Suck it and See!

posted: 15/09/2010

It's official, you can now have 'vanilla' sex! Well, you can if you decide to use one of the many flavoured condoms that are available on the market. But what do flavoured condoms actually taste like? Do guys really want to even consider them for oral sex?
 

These questions and many more will be answered at Suck it and See! - a flavoured condom tasting session at the Gay Men's Space (Steady now! we'll only be using bananas).

The tasting session will be followed by a discussion about using flavoured condoms for oral sex, and more generally about sex and risk reduction.
 

Suck It and See!  Monday 8th November 

at 6:30pm

at the Gay Men's Space.

The Gay Men's Space is for gay and bi men living with HIV. It is every Monday evening between 5pm and 8pm. If you have not used George House Trust services before please call Dunkan on 0161 274 4499 or email him.

More information? email Dunkan 

The Pope, HIV and condoms

posted: 13/09/2010

This week the Pope comes to Britain. Our interest is his part in the deaths caused by HIV of 2 million people each year. In May 2005, shortly after taking office, the Pope first talked about HIV, and came out against condoms.

He was addressing bishops from South Africa, where somebody dies of HIV every two minutes: Botswana with 23.9% of adults between 15 and 49 being HIV positive; Swaziland, where 26.1% of adults have HIV; Namibia, 15%; and Lesotho, 23%.
 

He has carried on since: in March 2009, while flying to Cameroon (where 540,000 people have HIV), Pope Benedict XVI explained that HIV is a tragedy "that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".

In May 2009, the Congolese bishops conference celebrated with this announcement: "In all truth, the Pope's message which we received with joy has confirmed us in our fight against HIV/Aids. We say no to condoms!"
 

Leading English archbishop joins in
The Pope’s position has been supported, in the past year alone, by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster. "It is quite ridiculous to go on about AIDS in Africa and condoms, and the Catholic Church," says O'Connor. "I talk to priests who say, 'My diocese is flooded with condoms and there is more AIDS because of them."
 

Infected lies and nonsense
Some have been even more imaginative in their messages against condoms. In 2007, Archbishop Francisco Chimoio of Mozambique announced that European condom manufacturers are deliberately infecting condoms with HIV to spread AIDS in Africa. Out of every 8 people in Mozambique, one has HIV.
 

It was Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo of Colombia who most famously claimed that the HIV virus can pass through tiny holes in the rubber of condoms. Again, he was not alone. "The condom is a cork," said Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Spain, "and not always effective."
 

In 2005 Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, explained that scientific research has never proven that condoms "immunise against infection". He's right, they don't. They stop a virus that can kill you from being transmitted during sex.

Condoms stop 80% of HIV infections
How effective are condoms? It's always wise never to overstate a case. The latest systematic Cochrane review of the literature found 14 observational studies. These studies generally looked at HIV transmission in stable heterosexual couples where one partner had HIV. Overall, rates of HIV infection were 80% lower in the partners who reported always using a condom, compared to those who said they never did. 80% is very effective.
 

There is no single perfect solution to the problem of HIV: if things were that easy, HIV wouldn't be killing 2 million people every year. ‘ABC’ is a widely used HIV prevention acronym in Africa: it stands for abstain, be [faithful], [use a] condom.
 

Selecting one of the most effective elements from these three and actively campaigning against it is plainly destructive, just as telling people to abstain doesn't make everyone abstain, and telling people to use condoms won't make everyone use them. But the Pope has proclaimed: "The most effective presence on the front in the battle against HIV/Aids is the Catholic church and her institutions."
 

This is ludicrous. The pope leads the Catholic church which is the only major influential international political organisation that actively tells people not to do something that plainly works well.
 

It’s fine to preach abstention and being faithful. But deliberately and misleadingly sabotaging the use of condoms which are 80% effective and which prevent an infection that kills 2 million people a year, makes the Pope and the Catholic church a serious global public health problem. 
 

Open Letter from NAT (National AIDS Trust) and FPA  

Source The Guardian Bad Science column (edited)

Pride excess and risks

posted: 27/08/2010

Pride is a tempting party time of drink, drugs and sex. So what’s not to like? The crowds, scene atmosphere and all-out hedonism drive some of us past our limits. Our livers complain, there are comedowns, and if we ‘forget’ and don’t use condoms, we may end the weekend with HIV or some other STI, or pass something on.

How can we stay more in control?
We can all use tips and tricks.

Set yourself strict limits and party only on special occasions, so you might decide one night only over the weekend, and set a limit for how late you stay out, the types of drinks, how many, or what you do.

Be more choosy about the situations and people, where the temptations to excess may be too much for you to resist.

Take only so much money, and leave at a time you decided earlier.

Drop the shots and more risky drugs.

Ask friends to watch out for you and help you stick to your rules and limits.

Alternate drinking soft drinks with alcohol.

Choose other ways to enjoy the time with friends – a BBQ, picnic, walk or swim, galleries, shopping, movies or a show.

Abstinence, going on the wagon for a time, works for some.

You can look after yourself and those around you and  have a good time.

Microbicides - Women Wait

posted: 18/05/2010

Next week’s International Microbicides Conference in Pittsburgh, USA will hear about the progress made in producing microbicides, that will help protect women and gay men from HIV.
 

Numerous past attempts at microbicides have failed. Using an anti-HIV drug in a microbicide is one of the attempts now being made to find some method of HIV prevention that women can use themselves. Women face problems protecting themselves from HIV, especially when their partners refuse to use condoms, or when simply suggesting condoms may put the woman in danger.
 

Is tenofovir part of the answer?

Tests are underway to see if tenofovir, one of the commonly used anti-HIV drugs, would work in vaginal gels and contraceptive-style rings. Experiments are also underway with quick-dissolving anti-HIV films, like those used for breath-fresheners or allergy medicines, but these are made for vaginal use.
In July we should have the results from the first study to see if tenofovir works in a microbicide — South African women are testing a gel made with it.
 

Cautious Hope
"Frankly, blocking transmission of the virus appears to be a lot harder than anyone understood it would be at the beginning," says co-chair Dr. Sharon Hillier of the University of Pittsburgh and a principal investigator of the Microbicide Trials Network. "The reason we're not depressed in the microbicide world? We actually have learned a lot and moved on to think about potent drugs and really cool delivery methods."
 

Pills for Prevention?
More than half a dozen studies of ‘pre-exposure prophylaxis’ (taking pills as treatment to prevent HIV infection happening) are also under way, and these mainly use tenofovir, because the side effects are more limited than with some other anti-HIV drugs. But even if pills for prevention works, taking HIV pills daily has drawbacks. There are the side effects, the risk of drug resistance, and people may miss doses or share the tablets with others so they wouldn’t be effective. It’s more expensive protection than condoms and the risks make it controversial.
 

Microbicide action
Microbicides are needed too. Women already make up half of the more than 33 million people worldwide living with HIV, and most of the new infections in hardest-hit sub-Saharan Africa are among young women.
"I have in fact so little to offer women in terms of HIV prevention that I sort of tear my hair out," says Dr. Salim Abdool Karim of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He’s leading the tenofovir gel study, his ninth microbicide study since 1994. "It must take a certain level of perseverance to want to stay in this field." Much more of the tenofovir reaches the vaginal tissue from a gel than any pill, and it doesn’t seem to move elsewhere into the body, so side effects may be minimal. He’s studying 900 HIV-negative heterosexual women to test whether tenofovir gel, applied up to 12 hours before intercourse and again within 12 hours afterward, lowers the risk of infection.
 

Next step soon
While awaiting his results in July, the U.S. National Institutes of Health is funding the next step: Researchers are already looking for 5,000 healthy women in several African countries to try two other approaches - vaginal tenofovir gel used daily rather than before and after sex, or or daily tenofovir pills. Which way is best?
 

Contraception teaches us that offering more choice about method leads to more women using something. So researchers are looking at other methods, too: a quick-dissolving tenofovir vaginal film, which should be completely invisible to the partner. Vaginal rings might be used to trickle-dose the vagina over a month. And for gay men ways to protect the rectum with tenofovir are in prospect.
Health promotion workers should get themselves ready to deal with the challenges should any of these attempts work, Dr. Regina Osih of the University of Witwatersrand will advise next week's microbicide conference.
 

Condoms for Pope in Portugal

posted: 12/05/2010

While the Pope’s arrival in Portugal yesterday was greeted by thousands of faithful lining the streets of Lisbon, there was also a protest against the Vatican's refusal to approve the use of condoms to prevent HIV.
 

The condom protest began as a small Facebook group just seven weeks ago but became a nationwide campaign backed by thousands of mostly young people, in one of the most devoutly Roman Catholic countries in Europe.

"We never imagined that we would one day have 14,500 people supporting us," the campaigners said yesterday after their Facebook group, formed on 20 March, mushroomed into a full-scaled protest against the Vatican's attitude to HIV prevention.
 

18,000 condoms and HIV awareness
Hundreds of young people flocked to distribution points in the capital to hand out free condoms, to protest the Vatican's refusal to endorse the use of condoms as a method to fight HIV. The campaign began when three young lawyers, Rita Barroso Jorge, Diogo Caldas Figueira and Joana Vieira da Silva, created a small group on the social networking site Facebook on Mar. 20. But it mushroomed until it had the support of nearly 15,000 people.
 

"By handing out free condoms, we are raising awareness in the fight against AIDS," said one of the campaign's organizers, Barroso Jorge. Their campaign was "a success beyond our expectations, because we distributed 18,000 condoms in three hours instead of the 16,000 in five hours that we had hoped to hand out."
 

The initiative, which has the support of Portugal's main women's and gay rights associations, among other civil society groups, will continue Wednesday and Thursday in Fátima, and Friday in Porto, the pope's next stops.
 

Another of the organizers, Caldas Figueira, pointed out that in March 2009, the pope acknowledged in Africa that HIV was a global tragedy, but the pope claimed the distribution of condoms has made the epidemic worse.
 

"Our protest was born in response to the pope's amazing distancing from reality and the extremely serious consequences that his statements can cause in the fight against AIDS," said Figueira.
 

Liberalising nation
The pope's visit comes as Portugal, where 90% of people say they are Roman Catholics, increasingly turns its back on the Vatican's preaching. President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who met the pope today, is expected to sign off shortly a law that will make Portugal the sixth European country to permit gay marriages.
Portugal's centre-left Socialist government has also introduced a law allowing a judge to grant a divorce even if one spouse is against it. The same government, led by Prime Minister José Socrates, passed a law in 2007 finally allowing abortion in Portugal. Benedict sharply criticised the abortion law yesterday, saying public officials must give "essential consideration" to issues that affect human life. "The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom," he said.
 

George House Trust comment
 

Pope Benedict will visit England and Scotland for four days from 16-19 September 2010. The power of social media in raising HIV awareness and activism is clear. Will someone be inspired to use the pope’s visit to Great Britain to raise HIV awareness here?
 

Visit plans

The pope flies to Scotland and sees the Queen at Holyrood in Edinburgh. He will celebrate Mass in Glasgow. In England, he’ll say Mass in Coventry but spend most of the rest of the time in London, with a speech to British civil society at Westminster Hall, and in meetings and services with the leaders of other Christian traditions.
 

Source
Pope’s UK visit