Final Blog

Looking back on this term I feel like I learned a lot. I have taken human sexuality and a few other health classes here at OSU and health in high school as well. I feel like this class taught me a whole lot more than I learned in all of those other classes combined. I think that looking at a global aspect really helped. I think that as an American I am still pretty sheltered and don't really see what is going on outside of Oregon. I think that this class was a real eye-opener for problems in places like Africa where there is not nearly as much wealth. I don't think that I was really expecting much coming into this class and I feel like everything that was taught really opened me up to what is going on in the world. I think that the most useful thing was probably just the way that everything was taught. I know it was mostly just facts and statistics but the truth in this case is really scary. It makes me want to be much more aware of the risks that I might be getting involved in and definitely try to decrease the chances of ever getting an STD. I think the most useful thing that I learned was probably how HIV/AIDS works, like what it does in the body. I think that understanding what is going on is important and before this class I didn't really have an idea of what happened when a person got AIDS. I think that you have to understand what is going on to really think about the disease at all. The least useful thing, I have to say would probably be one of the guest speakers. I don't know I just didn't get that much out of it especially when we just watched a video. I think that for next time keep it pretty much the same. The energy was good in class, and the slowest parts were probably the videos but they were helpful for the most part. I think that this is an extremely important class to be taught in universities and would be very good as a required course. I think that people, especially students need to see this stuff and try to protect themselves and others from something that is possibly lifelong.

Bob Skinner's AIDs presentation

I feel like Bob Skinner was very educated on living with AIDS. He has lived with it for quite a while now so he knows pretty much all that he can about it. I think he was a very helpful resource for information about the disease. As a class we should have asked more questions to get him to talk more about his personal experiences and maybe some of the things that he has gone through. Instead he talked a lot about who should take the blame for the start of the disease and a lot about the medical expenses and how many pills someone needs to take. I understand that this is some information about his day to day life with the disease but it got away from him and more just into general AIDs information, at least that is how I felt.

Obviously the disease is very different as we look at various areas of the globe. We look at Bob and he seems like a pretty well off (money wise) white gay male. He fits the stereotypical person with AIDs in the U.S. but is very different when looking at a global sense. If we look at Africa alone, the majority of the cases are women and there are way more cases in many countries. These people also tend to be poor and can't always afford medication. He showed us those pills and what the daily regimen of medication is like for someone with AIDS. Most people in countries with a lot of poverty can't afford this kind of treatment.

Condom use was the reason for so much heterosexual transmission of AIDS. The reason we see this comes from lack of education more than anything else. We in the U.S., know how to get condoms and usually get them for free. In many rural parts of the world they don't know anything about condoms and really don't know that this protects against the spread of AIDS. Also it is most common in heterosexual people which comes a lot from male dominance as well. Women in these areas have a real hard/ impossible time getting a man to wear a condom. These areas are also really hard to get treatment of HIV. There may not be proper healthcare in a lot of these areas. There is also very little money to pay for treatment. There also exists different types of medical treatment than many areas of the world like some still believe in medicine men that will heal them through old school techniques of treatment.

HIV Theories...

These theories are very interesting, all of them. I think it is really important to know where the disease came from. It is like history, how can we know where we are headed without knowing where we've been? I think that if we can for sure find the source of the HIV it will help so much to try to figure out how we can stop the spread of the disease. I think that if any of these theories have really nailed how we got the disease it will really help the research of how to cure the disease. Especially if HIV did come from SIV it will be a lot easier to try to figure out how SIV reacts with chimps and what changed when it shifted over into humans. Maybe understanding this mutation will lead to understanding how to get rid of it. The two most intriguing theories to me were; first the "hunter theory" since so many of the others are based on this and it really seems plausible, and the Colonialism Theory.

It seems fairly conclusive that the HIV came from a mutation of chimpanzee disease SIV. Somehow it had to mutate and enter the human blood stream. The "hunter theory" does an excellent job of explaining this in a logical way. Obviously those men in Africa that were hunting monkeys were exposed to the blood as well as eating the animal. The chimpanzee's, being the closest related ancestor to humans, made it much easier for a disease to go from one species to the next because of the similar genes. These men for sure did not even know what the consequences could be when dealing with blood from the chimps and probably got a lot of blood on them and in cuts and things making the spread relatively easy. From there even if only a few humans got the disease from the simians they would proceed to transfer it to other humans through sexual activity or blood transfer and it would go on to be the epidemic it is today. I am in pretty full agreement at the likelihood that the "hunter theory" is the cause of the start of HIV.

From there the Colonialism Theory really only expands on the same turn of events. It is pretty much in agreement with how the disease came from chimps and entered the human blood stream. In fact, "Colonialism" really just backs that theory up and builds upon it. It goes into the fact that in the area that was the major spread of HIV there were these labor camps that had massive amounts of workers. These plays were rampant with disease, prostitution, and sharing needles. The perfect way to get everyone in the camp infected with HIV. Since so many died in these camps and there is no records there is really no way to tell but if there was a massive spread of the disease this would have been the place to spread it faster than anywhere. After the break up of the camp the disease would be free to spread to thousands more people. It also lines up perfectly on the time line for the beginning of the spread of HIV. Between these two theories I can definitely see how HIV could have transferred to humans and then been spread super fast.

White Privelage - Peggy McIntosh

This article by Peggy McIntosh tries very hard to point out the lack of understanding of racial inequality. She plays on a fact that is known by most of the country but twists it around to say that racism is not based on disadvantaged minorities but more the unseen advantages that whites receive without even realizing it. She compares racism to sexism in that men don't tend to pay attention to the advantages that they get but at the same time they take advantage of these situations to benefit themselves.

I agree to a point with Peggy McIntosh. I don't think that it is ever a bad thing to try to understand more about racism to try to figure out a way to further our progress towards eaquality. I believe however that her article doesn't really say a whole lot. If it is trying to focus on whites being advantaged as opposed to minorities being disadvantaged it is the same thing. She talks about how whites see opportunities that say, black people, don't see. We all still understand that that is an advantage to the white person but at the same time the black person understands that they are not receiving that benefit so it is still the same kind of racism that people know is going on. I feel like a couple of the things she brought up in her 25 inequalities list like, " I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." this is something that all americans should feel and I don't think that this is a factor of racism. I'd say if anything factors of harassment and things like that depend on where you are at and who is harassing as well. There are many of these that change a lot with where you are, geographically, and shouldn't be tolerated anywhere.

I think that when it comes to looking at HIV/AIDS just focus in our country, that race actually does play a part. You do see discrepancies in the STI rates in different minority groups. This is for several reasons one of the major ones is health care. You also have to look at differences in education and poverty in various areas of the country. Like when we watched that video we saw that one reason for having alot of sex is it is something that is fun to do and is free. When you look at the correlation of that and poverty in say the black community then you can see they have a relationship. That is not the only reason, government support in poor areas of the country really is not the best as well. When these already disadvantaged people are unable to get access to proper education and protection against STI's then obviously they will see increased rates of those STI's. I think that looking at these larger systems would be way more beneficial to try to turn around the rates of STI's that are linked to race and poverty. I think as for this article Peggy tends to point out some racism that she sees and understands which is good but I think that everyone needs to realize is that racism has been around for hundreds of years in our country so change will not come overnight. We are making huge strides and I think we will continue to grow and while I can never see a totally equal society I think that we can get pretty close in the future.

HIV/AIDS

Throughout the years I have learned a little bit about HIV/AIDS. Most of the information that I have learned has been through health class in high school. There is a lot about this deadly disease that I'm sure I don't know much about but I have a little idea of what this disease is and what it can do. I understand that HIV is sort of the disease that you get that leads to AIDS. Once a person gets AIDS there is not really much they can do to try to help themselves, there is no cure for AIDS and it must be incredibly hard to deal with. AIDS is a deadly virus that attacks your body's immune system eventually to the point where you cannot fight off pretty much any small infection or sickness. It allows other things to kill your body just because you no longer have the ability to fight them off. This disease became a headline in the late 80's and early 90's and was thought to only affect men in the gay population at first which attached a major stigma to it. A lot of people don't approve of a homosexual lifestyle and therefore did not even care about trying to save these people. It took a while for the U.S. to understand that AIDS could affect anyone man or women of any sexual orientation. We also know now that it is transmitted sexually between two people. It spread more easily through anal intercourse at first which is why it was so prevalent in the gay community.

It has become a huge problem globally. As we can see when looking at how it is spread across the globe, poorer areas like South and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have major problems with the amount of cases of AIDS. These areas need more support in health care and education to help the people in these countries to understand the disease and how it is being spread to such a major part of their population. I think if there is anything that I want to know more about it would have to be about treatment and also potential cures for HIV/AIDS. I understand that there isn't a cure but I want to know what kind of research is being done and how hard people are working to try and fix this epidemic. I also don't understand why people in Africa with AIDS seem to have such a shorter life span than those in wealthier countries like the U.S. The most shocking thing from the videos this week for me was the amount of poverty in countries like Namibia. I knew they were moving towards urbanization in many areas and I didn't know that things were still so rural and so many people there were poor. It was very sad to see all of the people that could barely afford food as well as all of the kids that were head of the households.

Poverty as a factor in STI's

Poverty is an issue that has a huge affect on the prevalence of STI's in certain areas of the world. It is hard to comprehend living in the U.S. (one of the richest countries in the world) but there are certain areas of the world where people have trouble just getting food to eat and don't even think about certain aspects of health including the spread of STI's. When looking at Sub-saharan Africa and various places in South America we can begin to understand some of the poverty that exists in this globe. Without actually being to these places or seeing their lifestyle first hand it is still hard to fully understand the situation that these people are living in. We saw in the video about Namibia how different people are living there and it seems as though it would be really hard to live there. There are so many people that are malnourished because they don't even have money to buy food. Access to healthcare in regions like this is very limited. The government doesn't have the same kind of programs like we are used to in the U.S. that help people get proper healthcare and understand the dangers that go with different STI's. Poor areas often lack proper education as well. If the people in these areas don't learn about health growing up then they are not going to fully understand what is happening when they contract an STI. They also don't learn how to properly protect themselves from getting STI's. Also as it was put in the video these people don't have money for entertainment and sex is one thing that they might enjoy that doesn't cost anything.

All of this is more us from the U.S. looking at these poverty stricken places from an outside view. There is no way to tell what these people are really going for unless we were to be in their "shoes" or at least to interact with them and learn about their culture. Rich nations are often very ignorant about the problems of people that live in poverty in other parts of the country. There is alot that we don't understand about them which leads us to believe things like it is their own fault for spreading the disease to such a level. This is not really true, much of it is just people growing up and becoming a "product of their environment". What I mean is that these people that don't get an education or health care or food every day have more things going on in their lives than we realize looking in on them. There is some poverty in the U.S. but not even on the same level as areas where the entire poplulation is pretty much poor. We do have our issues here too, and we do see increased rates of STI's in the small areas of our own country that are affected by poverty. This is definitely an issue that tends to affect STI prevalence no matter where it is.

Realhealth tv HPV

I watched a video on HPV, I saw it on youtube but it was originally on realhealth.tv. I think that this video was very well done. It was just one girl telling her story about HPV, how she contracted it and what she has to do now to deal with it. I think that it does a good job of conveying a true message having the information coming from a girl who seems just like a down to earth person, not a doctor or professional or anyting. It doesn't really use fear to get its message across it is more of just a very informational video that is more out there to help people understand that there doesn't have to be such a negative connotation with this STI. I think that all of the information in this video was true, it was more of the story of a girl that did have a few things about how she was being treated and needing to get tested.
I think that the target audience for this video was young adults around college age. The girl was trying to help people understand that you don't have to be permiscuous to get a STI. I think that she did very well to connect with her target audience and to get her point across. This video was well done and showed that there doesn't have to be such a bad stigma that goes with having an STI. If they stepped up I believe that advertising could change the way that people view STI's and those that have them. If more people understood that it is a fairly common thing and can happen to most anyone than we would not treat those who have STI's any differently than those people that don't. I think that media not really being able to talk about sex very much has made it hard for them to take a stance either way on STI's. If this changes there could be a lot of good done by advertising to help people that have an STI feel more comfortable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Dci50v3FCE

President's Apology to Tuskegee

The study that was done at Tuskegee was a horribly unethical study that studied the affects of syphilis in a group of African American people in the city of Tuskegee. These people were lied to and denied treatment even after it had been found. It has major implications beyond the obvious distrust of government including African Americans distrust of health officials as well as a belief in some that AIDS was forced on the black community in an attempt to harm them. An apology to these people is not nearly enough but it was definitely a start. President Clinton did well to acknowledge all of the people that he did and I think that the plan that he enacted was definitely a step in the right direction.

Clinton's apology was pretty emotional and seemed very heartfelt even with just reading it. I think that everyone understands that these people were wrong and the President did well to put into words how sorry he personally was. It was also really nice that he backed it up with a plan to try to increase the techniques and safety of future research. I think that his point about needing more African Americans for conducting research was very prevalent. I think that in order for studies to serve the greater good of the nation, all minorities need to be involved in the study so we can learn how different things affect a diverse population. I think that African Americans have come a long way in this country even just since this study. The inauguration of Barack Obama today is a great example of that. I think that he will make great strides for this country. I think also having an African American in that situation of power will change the way that many African Americans see things. With a black man in the white house I think there will be much more trust in the government in the black community. I think it will also make minorities more likely to get involved in politics and studies.

Smallpox as a Bioweapon?

Bioterrorism is one of the biggest threats to public health today. The fact that there are people out there who possess the power to release a dangerous virus to the American people is very scary. It was a great success to find a vaccine that cured smallpox but the fact that it is no longer commonly used could directly lead to a terrorist attack. We have to understand that the U.S. has plenty of enemies in the world that know how lethal an attack with bioweapons could be and would surely unleash it under the right circumstance. This would create an epidemic of smallpox if it were unleashed in the right urban locations and there would not be much we could do about it.

I personally don't believe that there will be an attack like this on the U.S. If there was it would surely change the landscape of the entire world. The implications of an attack of that magnitude would change so many things worldwide including foreign relations, the economy, politics, there is so many things that would become unstable. While I don't believe that it is going to happen that doesn't mean that we should be unprepared. We understand that it is a threat and could happen so building up a response sooner rather than later can't hurt. A resurgence of Smallpox would be devastating for our country and I think that having a plan for if it were to happen is a really good idea.

There has been plenty of times that a break through in public health that have led to unexpected consequences. The first thing that pops into my head is teaching sex education in schools. While I believe it is important that kids are taught sex education it has not done much to help the fact that teen pregnancy is still a major problem in this country. Kids are still experimenting if not more so than before they were learning about sexuality in schools.