From: Vanessa Novaeris (novaeris@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 14 2002 - 19:23:16 MST
sorry for all the late posts - its taking me awhile to get caught up :P
I don't know much about the medical/scientific part of HIV but I learned a
little bit about the social side from some people who were infected. I lived
in Dupont (well-known for being a community of gay men) for awhile in DC &
it's a big problem there. (I think there was an article awhile back in the
NY Times about the HIV problems in Dupont & Anacostia.) When I had to go to
the hospital, practically the entire ward was HIV positive drug addicts, and
most of them were gay males or transexuals. I got to know some of them
pretty well & they were very candid about their attitudes toward being HIV
positive. I usually got either one of two responses: #1 It was hopeless &
they were going to die anyway so they may as well get strung out or #2 That
with the medical progress being made, they could continue their destructive
lifestyle without any additional harm. While these attitudes (especially #2)
may not make rational sense to us, they are very real in the minds of these
people & from what they say, this is a common position among HIV positive
users in that particular community. My roommate did some work for
Whitman-Walker in Dupont & her personal experience also confirmed this. The
reason I feel I can rely so much on what I learned in my personal
interactions, especially in the hospital, is that it wasn't a one time deal
- I unfortunately ended up there several times and the only thing that
changed were the names & faces - everything else including their stories &
histories were identical - it was shocking. I think its interesting to
compare the characteristics of this population in different regions. Because
I'm speaking only from my personal experience, I can only compare the places
where I lived - Washington DC & Northwestern Massachusetts. I live in
Massachusetts now where the drug of choice in this area seems to be heroin
rather than cocaine (though I noticed crack is equally prevalent in both
places) & the dominant health problem seems to be Hepatitis C rather than
HIV. People infected here cite sharing needles to be the cause of their
infection while in DC it was usually tied to unprotected sex. Another
difference involves the social & political response of each community to the
epidemics. Of course, it all comes down to local budgets & the funds
allocated to social programs. But the approach to HIV up here in Mass
(despite recent budget cuts) is very proactive in terms of education,
prevention & getting out into the streets - safety programs, needle
exchanges, and free anonymous testing. HIV testing, specifically the rapid
test, is getting really big really fast.
http://www.medadvocates.org/diagnostics/RapidHIVTestMainPage.html gives a
good list of rapid tests, but the corporate & manufacturing information is
limited. I'm not sure about the exact methods or chemistry of these tests
but the links provide that info.
http://www.biospace.com/news_story.cfm?StoryID=6728415&full.S. Food &
Drug Administration has granted an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE)
for Efoora's HIV Rapid Test.
If I'm not mistaken, the other test granted an IDE was one of Trinity
Biotech's Uni-Gold tests: http://www.trinitybiotech.ie/catalog/rapid_hiv.htm
Both of these tests have over 99% accuracy. Surely lots of companies have
been scrambling to be first in on this new market for rapid testing. I
became interested in the market for rapid testing just recently when I was
in rehab. I was offered the opportunity for a free (state funded) anonymous
HIV test. The rehab centers contract out for the HIV counselor to come in &
do testing. Like I said, I don't know anything about the science of these
tests, but the one I took at rehab involved rubbing this cotton swab kind of
thing against my gums & holding it there inside my mouth for about a minute
- no blood was drawn. I spoke to the HIV counselor on several occasions & he
mentioned something about Efoora's rapid test. The HIV clinics in the area
were participating in Efoora's last phase of preliminary testing & he
encouraged people to participate through the clinic. He said they needed
more names, more results to submit before the cut off date. They were not
merely offering a free rapid test to anyone interested, but they were
actually PAYING people $25 just for participating. These tests, however,
were not anonymous. By this point I had already gotten my results through
the program at rehab, but I was really curious about how this worked (the
$25 didn't sound bad either) so I went to check it out. I had mixed feelings
about being there - it was good to see such programs in effect & available
to the general public, but it was also sad to see some of the shit going on
there (like some people actually had to draw their own blood because the
tech couldn't get a vein). It only took like 20 minutes but they had to draw
a lot of blood (well, it felt like a lot to me anyway) about 5 viles or so.
They told me I was fine (which I already knew) but to check back in 2 weeks
for confirmation of the official results. I asked the technician & she said
out of about 400 people she tested since january, maybe 2 people had final
results different from the rapid. They cut me a check & that was that.
So I tried to look up some information on Efoora but there wasn't much. I
found something about a merger of sorts a couple of years ago. But it seems
like things were set up in anticipation of the test's release this year back
in 2000, which was well before the date of their IDE. Something didn't seem
quite right, like they knew they'd be approved for IDE a year before they
even began trial testing. So there's all this stuff going on between these
corporate industries & the government - not too sound naïve, but I just find
it kind of disturbing. I don't know - it just made me think about these
giant medical industries & all the political factors involved. You can't
help but wonder how much further technology (& social change as well) could
progress without being inhibited by these dominating political forces.
Vanessa
novaeris@hotmail.com
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