Although Switzerland's Federal AIDS Commission said January 30 that HIV-positive people who are on an antiretroviral regimen cannot pass the virus to a negative partner, health officials and AIDS advocates worry that these new findings are misleading, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo News Reports (news.yahoo.com, 1/30).
According to critics, the claim made by Swiss officials—based on four separate studies—is focused on sex among heterosexuals. One study in Spain followed 393 heterosexual serodiscordant couples from 1990 to 2003 and found that none of the negative participants were infected if their partner was taking antiretrovirals. No similar studies have examined serodiscordant homosexual couples.
“We don’t feel the scientific evidence is conclusive, and there are some key issues that are not covered in this advice,” says Roger Peabody of the Terrence Higgins Trust AIDS charity in London.
Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I recently met a guy who is negative. I did tell him about my status and he decided to kiss me anyway (we didn't go further than that). But a day later, he called and said that he actually had a mouth ulcer that time when we kissed and he was very worried. Asked if he can get the virus from me that way. For that moment, I felt so insulted and yet I felt so bad. It was my first time having a contact with a "negative" guy."
