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Table of Contents



Pray Tell

The South Shall Rise Again

Coming Clean




On Your Marks

What’s In, What’s Out

Sperm of the Moment

Ready for Your Screen Test?

Staph Directory

(Not So) Free of Charge

The Simplex Life




The Big Fix

Lost

Scotch Guard

Sounds Like a Plan

I Got Tested for HIV... And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Hot Dates-November 2007

Babe Boom

The Profiler

Hot or Not?

Release Party

Toxic Avengers

Ticket to Ride

Medical Leave




Editor's Letter-November 2007

Mailbox-November 2007

Catch of the Month-November 2007


Most Talked About

HIV: Behind the Music (46)

Virtual Prevention: Fighting HIV Online (26)

Inmate Testing: Optional or Mandatory? (17)

Senators Clinton and Obama Discuss HIV/AIDS (10)

Defending Vaccine Research (8)

Most Popular Lessons

Herpes Simplex Virus

Syphilis & Neurosyphilis

Shingles

The HIV Life Cycle

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)


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November 2007


Ready for Your Screen Test?

by Laura Whitehorn

A simple lab exam allows positive people to avoid a dangerous reaction to the HIV med abacavir. (It’s in the nukes Ziagen, Epzicom and Trizivir).

Some 8 percent get a serious allergic reaction (called a hypersensitivity reaction, or HSR) to abacavir. The reaction involves a rash with fever, stomach problems, fatigue and shortness of breath. If people have these symptoms after taking abacavir, they risk death if they stop and start the drug again. Some people get one or two of the symptoms but not the actual HSR. So doubts and worries have reigned.

Now a simple blood or swab test can screen people for the gene that predicts the HSR. If people have the gene, they can avoid the drug; those without the gene don’t need to worry. The screen, ordered by your doc, is called the HLA-B*5701 test, after the gene linked to the drug reaction. Roll ’em.  

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