“Philomene was a dainty thing, built somewhat on the order of Lois De Fee, the lady bouncer. She had the rippling muscles of a panther, the stolidity of a water buffalo, and the lazy insolence of a shoe salesman.” – S.J. Perelman, “Crazy Like a Fox.”
COKE AND HIV: A fascinating study today that proves the bleeding obvious: if you’re HIV-positive and doing coke on a regular basis, your immune system is likely to collapse much more quickly than if you were sober. But the benefit of the study seems to be that it has successfully isolated the effects of cocaine – rather than the effects of poor eating, less sleep that go with coke-use. Of course, among some HIV-infected populations, such as the inner-city poor, it’s more likely to be crack that accelerates illness and death. And in the urban gay male world, the soaring use of crystal meth is also a far more dangerous threat. This isn’t even about transmission as such. It’s about the maintenance of health in HIV-infected individuals – the difference between a short decline into illness or decades of good living. I think it would be a smart move by groups dealing with HIV among gay men to move away from some of the doom and gloom messages about transmission (which have obviously failed to have much traction) and start appealing more aggressively to men with HIV about their more general health. Instead of portraying HIV as still a deadly and terrifying disease (which most gay men understandably question these days), health officials need to stress how well you can live with HIV if you avoid smoking, excessive drug-use, heavy drinking, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, and so on. This is a positive message that also builds self-esteem, rather than a negative message that seems to condemn people for contracting HIV, stigmatize them for having it, and place the blame exclusively on them for transmission. Let’s use this study as a good place to start for a new discussion.
The Dish 