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Subjects in this issue:
Holistic Work
Metabolic Diet
Anal Cancer
Children
Positively Aware
Sissster Chrissstian
Holistic Work
My partner and I have recently been diagnosed (this week) as HIV-positive, and reading this article (The Wholistic Picture) helped to strengthen my belief that disease is so much a holistic phenomenon, that if we take care of the whole, we can overcome any obstacle. My partner teaches yoga and I practice as well, and am thinking about becoming a teacher too. I do hope to see more articles on the benefits of natural healing, i.e., yoga, energy work (such as craniosacral work, body talk, and Reiki), healthy eating and the like. Thank you.
Name withheld, via the Internet
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Metabolic Diet
Thank you for this article [HIV Treatment Series: Early Interventions for Metabolic Complications of HIV, March/April 2006], which I find very informative and useful; can you please explain further why soy is a no-no, and especially why flax seed and lignans are a problem. I have tried a search, but cannot find any references.
Name withheld, via the Internet
Carla Heiser responds: There are two well-designed research studies showing a negative impact of flax lignan on estrogen metabolism (affecting men and women’s hormone balance). [View study abstracts on-line.]
It says in your article to avoid soy, but it never says why. This is the first time I’ve ever read this anywhere. I have become increasingly prone to problems with milk tolerance. I have a lot of HIV-related digestive problems (diarrhea, gas, etc.). I switched to soy milk about a year ago and feel much better. Any comments or suggestions? In the article it suggested rice milk instead of soy. Is that what I should do? Thank you for your help.
Name withheld, via the Internet
Carla Heiser responds: Data on health benefits of soy is not conclusive. There is a paucity of data from rigorously designed research studies, and published work of placebo-controlled studies represents small study sample sizes. Research shows that soy may have a negative effect on thyroid and other hormone balance. Another alternative for cow milk is low sugar almond milk. Goat milk and goat and sheep milk products may be okay if there is a sensitivity to cow milk. Sometimes people have sensitivities to goat and sheep milk proteins. The lab that we use for determining type of food sensitivity is U.S. Biotek (www.usbiotek.com). The test runs about $390 to determine immediate and delayed sensitivities to 96 foods. Private insurance plans may cover this expense.
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Anal Cancer
I’m a four year survivor of 4th stage terminal anal cancer. I have HPV [human papillomavirus]. I was treated with 5FU and Cisplatin, was not expected to live, but I got through somehow. It was long and very painful, it took two years to heal from the radiation alone, and I had many side effects from the chemo. I just want to say that men having sex with men should have regular anal check-ups. Don’t hesitate. It just might not be a hemorrhoid you’re dealing with. That’s what they thought I had, but luckily the doctor at the time thought I should see a colorectal doctor to make sure, and he was right, anal cancer is no joke. It has to be one of the more painful cancers to get, and there was not enough pain medication around to get rid of it, and even today on HAART medications I still have constant diarrhea, for which I have to take prescribed medication, so please get checked and be sure.
Name withheld, via the Internet
Jeff Berry responds: Thanks for your e-mail. My partner also had anal cancer, so I know somewhat what you went through. The treatments are painful, but luckily the success rate is very high. He was in a lot of pain; only after a lot of complaining was he finally referred to a pain management specialist, who helped get his pain to a level he could deal with to get through the treatments. I’m glad to hear that you had success with your treatments, but I know that living with the after effects of chemo and radiation can be debilitating. Thankfully you had a good doctor, and I wish you all the best in the future.
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Children
Carlos [Perez] hit the nail on the head [My Kind of Life, November/December 2005]! We need to start with the children. We as adults need to get over our hangups so we can protect our children. As director of a new community-based organization in the Lummi Nation Native American community near Bellingham, Washington, I have realized that to break the barrier of stigma here, we need to start with the youth. This will be a long-term goal. The change will not happen overnight. But with education we can began to turn the tide. Education is key. HIV/AIDS is very secretive out here, but with the extremely common substance abuse, you know that HIV infection is also high. It is time to accept the fact and teach through education that we can learn how to protect ourselves and our children.
Hamen P. Ides, Ti-chee: Native American HIV Prevention, Education & Outreach, via the Internet
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Positively Aware
As I sit wide awake, well rested and alive at 64, I am remembering the past 15 years and being aware of what it has taken for me to be alive and looking forward to being 65 next year.
Aside from God and my family’s support, I am grateful to the wonderful doctor Joseph C. Gathe, Jr., for ongoing (even though slowly and not enough) research and developments, and to your publication. I am alive today with limited finances, but I am alive and eager to return to the ranks of the employed. I am positively aware of HIV disease.
Your positive approach and up-to-date information (and others) have liberated my mind to being more positive and has allowed me to always keep in my mind and thoughts and actions that HIV really means Hope Is Vital for living.
With all the positives and negatives, AIDS (As I Die Slowly, per some young folks) has never been my destination. I must live to see and help my two wonderful grandchildren grow and thrive. P.S. The donation is small but nowhere equal to what I’ve gotten.
Beneva Nyamu, MSW MPH, Houston, TX
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Sissster Chrissstian
I just read your [Jim Pickett’s] most recent article in Positively Aware [March/April 2006], and I feel sick. I feel sick (and so tired) that you were uninvited to the “unless you look, believe, sound, and live just like us, you’re not allowed to teach us” HIV prevention conference. It’s so freaking ridiculous to me that these Christian groups, who claim to “love their neighbors as themselves,” don’t. They wear their crosses on their sleeves, and act like Judge Judy, and I hate it! I’m pretty sure Jesus hates it too. I guess I was especially enraged because I work at a Christian college, and I’m surrounded by this kind of hypocrisy each and every day. I stay here because I believe in higher education, and believe in being a safe space for students who, like me, fit outside the box (thank God). It’s too bad that the community in “the interiors of Indiana” wasn’t able to hear your presentation. You’re brilliant and have so much goodness (“potty mouth” and all) to share with others. I wish I could simply say, “their loss,” but so many others will lose out too. HIV prevention work is not for the squeamish or the judgmental. To be honest, I’d hate to be on the “receiving end” of their “work.” Thanks for yours. Thanks for your writing. Thanks for kicking ass.
Lindsay Mitchell, via the Internet
Jim, I read this article and it doesn’t surprise me at all that they made the right decision. Read the article you wrote! A lot of faith-based Christians are reaching out to those with AIDS and most don’t fit your queer-minded framing of the subject. My wife and I run a children’s orphanage in Haiti and down here and most of the third world, heterosexual misbehavior is killing children in droves. World Vision is exactly that. They work in a world you have no idea about. Go ahead and read your article and guess how many Christians would give you an ear. We need everyone in this fight. Even we who profess our love of Jesus Christ. Go ahead and read your article. I wish you God’s blessing and guidance in your future writings.
With Christ’s love, Ray Comfort, via the Internet
Is it your purpose to promote HIV/AIDS education or to compel conservative Christians to endorse your values and lifestyle as a precondition to providing HIV/AIDS education? As a self-styled “flaming vulgar queen” and “enormous homosexy fag,” your religious, sexual and family values are inconsistent with the “vision” and “ethos” of World Vision International. Are you incensed because WVI used politically correct language in stating the obvious?
And pardon me, but have we not been desperately trying to make the point to these very conservative Christians that HIV is not a gay disease or a gay first disease? HIV/AIDS has devastated the gay male population of the United States. This fact is in large part a direct result of the high incidence of unprotected anal sex and low awareness of HIV status. Toss in crystal meth abuse, depression and fear of exposure, and the picture becomes quite bleak. About half of the gay African American population is HIV-positive. 57% of United States AIDS diagnoses among men in 2003 were men who have sex with men (MSM). These are sad facts, but only facts.
In the U.S., heterosexual transmission rates rose from 3% in the early ‘80s to 31% in 2003. The most common transmission route for women is heterosexual contact. Children born with HIV are innocent, Jim (or are you espousing that very un-Christian notion of visiting the sins of the parents upon the children?). You are free, I suppose, to sneer at the innocence of un-empowered women without the freedom to resist unprotected marital sex. And perhaps some will even commiserate with you over a missed opportunity to trash marriage as a risk factor for HIV transmission. Incidentally, heterosexual transmission is the number one transmission method in the world. And yes, Jim, in Africa too. The gay white male who personifies the face of AIDS in the American psyche is arguably the single greatest obstacle in providing HIV/AIDS education, particularly to conservative religious groups.
So, suck up your personal rejection, create some headroom if your have no real room on your political agenda for people whose values differ from your own, and continue to educate about HIV/AIDS to those who are willing to listen to you. Perhaps, just maybe, this Christian group has already moved beyond “abstinence and being faithful” as preventative tools and has done so in a manner consistent with the shared values of its constituents. (Jesus did console the prostitute and deflate the moral superiority of self-righteousness: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”)
HIV is a human disease first and last. In your next diatribe, try not to lose sight of that fact. You did all HIV/AIDS educators a disservice by stating otherwise.
Name withheld,
Collins Correctional Facility,
Collins, New York
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