Circumcision Doesn’t Reduce Women’s HIV Risk
Circumcision of men with HIV does not reduce the risk of infection for women, according to a study published by The Lancet. The Australian

Cherie Balir Battles Suspected Swine Flu
Cherie Blair has suspected swine flu, it was revealed today. Courier Mail

Labor ‘Gagged’ School Heads In Victoria
The Rudd government has been attacked over claims by Victorian principals that they have been gagged from speaking out about the controversial rollout of the commonwealth computers in schools program. The Australian

When Boys Turn Into Girls On The Soccer Field
Boys could be barred from girls’ junior soccer teams after a budding Harry Kewell scored the winner against a top side. Herald Sun

Facebook Attacks On St Margaret’s Teachers Get Personal
Students at one of Brisbane’s most prestigious girls’ schools have launched searing personal attacks against their teachers on Facebook, questioning their sexual orientation and ridiculing their dress sense and teaching ability. Courier Mail

IVF Orphans Who Will Always Ask Their Mother: How Could You?
IVF may give ageing mothers everything they want – but what about the children, asks Genevieve Fox. Telegraph

Little Known Fact #1:

Few HIV+ women transmit the virus to their babies.

Our adoption agency identifies orphaned or relinquished babies and young children born HIV+ and matches them with adoptive families. Most of these children are born abroad. Why? Because transmission of HIV between a positive woman and her baby is almost completely preventable with the right drug regimen and has almost vanished in countries with access to those drugs.

Little Known Fact #2:

Babies born “positive” often serio-convert to negative by the time they are a year old. Even without the proper drugs, the odds of transmission between a woman and her baby are less than 50/50. In the early days of HIV, doctors tested such babies and found them positive, as they were carrying their mothers’ antibodies. But over 70% of these children “outgrew” their positive status, testing negative six or nine months (sometimes longer) after birth. Families who adopt HIV+ babies may find that their children are negative after all, with later testing.

Little Known Fact #3:

HIV is no longer an automatic death sentence. Even children who are truly HIV+ can be expected to live long, happy lives, even potentially having and raising biological (HIV-) children of their own. Don’t get me wrong: HIV is not a simple thing to deal with. It requires adherence to a drug regimen and regular doctor visits and testing to make sure that drug regimen is still the best one. Depending on the overall health of the positive child, she may suffer more than her share of childhood illnesses and they may hit her harder than the average child. But they may not. Some people living with HIV have virtually indistinguishable basic health from those who are negative.

Little Known Fact #4:

HIV doesn’t live well (or for very long) outside the human body. Once blood is dried, the risk of transmission is statistically zero. In fact, researchers have had a difficult time keeping HIV alive outside carefully controlled conditions. While wet blood spills need to be treated with care (generally, rubber glove and bleach are advised), a scab or some dried blood on a surface carry virtually no risk for transmission. And people on a good drug regimen are able to keep what’s called their “viral load” so low that even wet blood has a small infection risk. (For more details, see the CDC website.)

With these things is mind, I urge you to support efforts to get antiretroviral drugs to those in countries with high rates of HIV but little drug access. It is criminal that a single child should be born HIV+ when the drugs to prevent this are ready and available.

In the meantime, I’d humbly suggest that if you are considering adoption, to consider an HIV+ child. One thing is certain when you adopt such a child: there is no long waiting list of parents available. Many HIV+ children are what the UN calls “true orphans” with deceased parents and little social support in their home communities. You are unlikely to run into a Madonna situation when you adopt an HIV+ child. Instead, you can know that the child you bring home truly needs a new family. I have met a number of families with a mix of positive and negative children, all thriving and growing happily.

There are also ways to support AIDS orphans who will never be adopted, or whose biological relatives are still in their lives but need help providing health care and other basics for these children.

HIV does not have to be a death sentence. Children with HIV can have normal childhoods and long, healthy lives. The more people understand this good news, the better off these children will be.

image: child awaiting adoption; adoption-link.org

Jade Goody’s Visitors Scaled Back
Terminally ill Jade Goody’s visitors have been scaled back as she remains ’sedated and sleepy’ following an operation to relieve her pain. Daily Mail

Boys Charged With Smashing Urns
Four boys have been arrested after allegedly breaking into a crematorium in western NSW, smashing urns and scattering ashes. The Australian

Boy, 7, Locked Up ‘For Years’ In Bedroom With Urine-Soaked Mattress
A French couple has been arrested on suspicion that they kept their seven-year-old son locked up in a bedroom over the course of several years, a prosecutor said Thursday. SMH

Boy, 8, Who Taught Himself To Read At Age Two Tutors His Mother For GCSEs
He taught himself to read at two and was totting up his father’s darts scores at two-and-a-half. Now aged eight, Ben Hayward is preparing for his biggest challenge to date – coaching his mother Sue through her maths GCSE. Daily Mail

Now the girl's been pulled out of school by her parents, who are suing the Indiana institution for doing nothing to save their daughter from her tormentors. More than two decades after Ryan White, do kids still have to hide their HIV status?

There's a marked difference in the knowledge out there about HIV from the instant fear and massive homophobia of my eighties childhood. Ours was perhaps the first generation to be raised to have safe sex not to ward off unwanted pregnancy but to protect you from disease. We grew up in the time of Ryan White . . . and of Magic Johnson and Arthur Ashe. We were taught to be cautious – perhaps taught too much. I remember the health teachers giving us a blow by blow on what HIV and then AIDS could to do the body. Then they gave us the rundown of every single way we could possibly contract the virus. They terrified us – to the point where a bunch of overactive teenage imaginations were envisioning catching HIV by brushing up against someone walking down the street. 

Too much of the information thrown at us to keep us safe was off base and overblown. Now the generation raised to shake in their boots at the thought of AIDS is charged with raising their own kids. What are they telling them? Because it sounds like the kids in Westlane Middle School are scared. It sounds like they don't understand that a teenage classmate with AIDS does not mean a death sentence for them. In this day and age it doesn't even mean a death sentence for her (thankfully). 

Source: Salon

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