KEEP THIS TAINTED BLOOD OUT OF PUBLIC SUPPLY: 62 Percent Of HIV-Positive Men Have Unprotected Sex According to CDC

ATLANTA (CBS ATLANTA) – Data released last week found that 62 percent of American men who self-reported being HIV-positive said they had unprotected anal sex with a male partner in the last 12 months.

The Centers for Disease Control report, “HIV Testing and Risk Behaviors Among Gay, Bisexual and Other Men who have Sex with Men,” noted that the population of men having sex with men (MSM) is a small proportion of the US population; however, this group represents the majority of people diagnosed with HIV.

In 2011, men who had sex with men accounted for at least half of persons diagnosed with HIV in all but two states. Anal sex is cited by the CDC as having the highest-risk practice for HIV infection.

“High HIV prevalence, lack of awareness of HIV-positive status, and unprotected anal sex” between gay, bisexual and other men are cited by the CDC as contributing to continued new infections among this population.

However, only 67 percent of sexually active MSM reported getting an HIV test in the past year.

The researchers found that some men attempt to decrease their HIV risk by only engaging in unprotected sex with those “perceived” as having HIV or not. However, this practice is risky because some may not disclose or may not know they are infected with the virus.

Unprotected anal sex among MSM increased from 2005 to 2011, and in 2011 one-third of HIV-positive MSM who did not know if they were infected reported unprotected sex with a partner who said they were HIV-negative or did not know either.

The researchers wrote that more testing and openness about protected sex can dramatically curb the spread of infections.

“Sexually active MSM should be tested at least annually for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Sexually active MSM can take steps to make sex safer such as choosing less risky behaviors, using condoms consistently and correctly if they have vaginal or anal sex, reducing the number of sex partners, and if HIV-positive, letting potential sex partners know their status.”

Standard Precautions for Your Family

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At PKIDs, we talk a lot about disease prevention and the three steps you and your family can take to stay as healthy as possible. Today I’m going to share some of our information about one of those steps, but I can’t resist mentioning the other two.

First, keep your hands clean and don’t touch your eyes, nose or mouth. Those are prime areas for germs to enter your body.

Second, check with your provider to see what vaccines you and your family need and then get vaccinated on schedule.

Third, practice standard precautions in daily living. This means that you assume that everyone’s blood and body fluids are infectious for HIV, hepatitis B or C, or other bloodborne pathogens and you act accordingly.

People of all colors, rich and poor, fat and thin, old and young are chronically infected with HCV, HBV, HIV, and other diseases. Forty to 90 percent of these folks don’t know they’re infected.

It’s impossible to identify those living with an infectious disease. The only way to try and keep yourself and your kids reasonably healthy is to learn a practical approach to standard precautions. At first, you’ll be paranoid of everyone and everything, but as the precautions become habits, they’ll be a natural part of your life—like turning the lock on a door, or stepping on the brake at a red light. They will become normal, daily precautions.

The primary thing to remember with standard precautions is to always have a barrier between your skin and mucous membrane (around the eyeballs, gums, and inside the nose), and the (potentially) infectious substance. Go to a medical supply store and buy some latex gloves. Keep them in your house and car. If you don’t happen to have gloves and you need to deal with someone’s body fluid, put sandwich baggies or trash can liners over your hands. Use a sanitary napkin or thick, rolled-up towel to collect the fluid or staunch the flow of blood.

Sometimes blood and body fluids can become airborne. If you wear glasses, keep them on. If you don’t wear glasses, put on your sunglasses to protect your eyes. If you have one, tie a scarf around your face like the masked bandits used to do.

Use a one-part bleach to ten-part water solution or another disinfectant for cleaning up substances, including your own! As soon as you have dealt with the situation, throw away the disposable protective items (your gloves, etc.) and wash your hands thoroughly.

As soon as possible, cover your hands again and remove any non-disposable items you’re wearing and wash them appropriately. Common sense will guide you in this. Just don’t go through all of the precautions only to bare-hand your dress which is covered in someone else’s body fluid.

Make sure you keep all of your cuts and abrasions covered with a waterproof bandage. Be careful with badly chapped skin. It can crack and allow fluids to enter and exit. These precautions are a two-way street. You may be one of the millions unaware that you’re living with an infectious disease.

Only you know if your child is old enough to understand these precautions. Practicing them with your kids would be useful for the whole family. If your kids are too young to understand what we’ve outlined, there are a few things you can try to help the younger members of the family participate in standard precautions.

It would help if you set aside a non-work day to role play this with your kids. Call it: Family Safety Day. This would also be a good day to practice evacuating the house in case of fire and all those other safety rules we seldom rehearse.

To help the kids understand how invisible germs can pass from one person to the next, put glitter on your child’s hands and let him/her go to the bathroom, play with family members, and pick up a cracker (without actually eating it). Go back to the beginning of the journey and walk him/her around the house, following the trail of glitter. This will help demonstrate how we can pass germs (and other things) to each other without knowing it. To press home the point, you might put glitter on your hands, too.

Have one member of the family be “bleeding” ketchup. You be a young child and run for an adult when you see the blood. Have your young child go through the same scenario several times. Then pretend there’s no adult around and show your child how to use a coat or towel as a barrier between them and the blood.

It’s important that they learn not to reach out and touch another person’s blood or body fluid. One way to help them understand (and this is kind of gross) is to ask them if they would touch someone else’s poop or nose gunk. Most kids, no matter how young, will say no. You can then explain that blood is really personal, like poop and nose gunk, and they don’t want to touch anyone else’s blood.

This approach is necessary only for a few years. Once they get to be five or six, you can start explaining more.

A few general rules for everyone to remember would be: don’t share razors, toothbrushes, manicure tools, nail clippers, hypodermic needles, cocaine straws, body piercing equipment, tattooing equipment, or anything that can puncture or is a personal grooming item.

Standard precautions as practiced by healthcare professionals cover a wide range of topics, including sharps disposal, ventilation devices (mouth pieces for resuscitation), specimen handling, and other opportunities for the spread of infection which you are unlikely to come across in daily living.

We wanted to give you some practical, basic precautions to help you live a normal, safe life. Let us know if you have any ideas for teaching little ones precautions.

You might want to check on your daycare or preschool or kindergarten’s awareness of standard precautions. Most of them will say they’ve had AIDS training. If they are receptive to suggestions, feel free to share some of these ideas with them.

We know of a preschool which keeps a chart for cleaning the bathrooms, gloves are always worn when necessary, and they really work hard to do everything right. But, several of the preschoolers never get to use soap on their hands because the sink is too wide for them to reach across to the soap dispenser, and the side access is blocked from a large storage cabinet which is pushed against the sink. The best of intentions can’t overcome reality.

Following these steps won’t guarantee you a disease-free life, but it’ll cut down on the number of infections you have.

By PKIDs staff