HIV and the Workplace - Do You Have To Tell?

Should you keep information about HIV a secret from your boss?

Preventing the spread of deadly diseases is always a huge concern for any employer, but in the healthcare industry, it is doubly so.

One of the biggest infectious diseases today is HIV. It is a concern for all medical professionals, but for those who are HIV positive themselves, it can be an even larger dilemma.

With appropriate medical care, people who are diagnosed with HIV can live a full life and still be very productive members of society and the workforce. Because of the many medical breakthroughs, it is more common for people infected with the disease to continue to work at their jobs without much disruption.

When the epidemic was still new, most people who found out that they were infected didn't receive the diagnosis until the disease was already in the late stages and they had begun developing symptoms. Because early testing and medication weren't available, they typically weren't able to return to work and those who were, weren't able to hide their condition due to their frequent struggles with complications as the disease progressed.

Luckily, early detection and medication can manage the disease and keep symptoms to a minimium. In addition, the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS released a report that states that the majority of people living with HIV are between the ages of 15 and 49. These are the prime working years of their lives.

People who have been diagnosed with HIV are not required to inform their employer. Although there are times when sharing the information is valuable, for example, when they need time off to deal with their illness or they need their boss to make certain accommodations.

If they choose to reveal their illness at work, they run the risk of being stigmatized and discriminated against. Although they are given protection under the Amercians With Disabilities Act, this only gives them legal protection against being fired for having the disease. It doesn't do anything to combat the prejudices that they may face from their co-workers and others.

Even though HIV and AIDS awareness have made great strides in educating people about the disease and fighting the ostracizing of people living with the illness, there are still people who would be uncomfortable working with someone they know is infected. This is especially true in a medical setting.

All employees should support a healthy and open work environment for everyone. There are still many companies that don't educate their managers on how to prevent discrimination and how to cope with it when they become aware of it.

The prejudices against people with HIV still persist and even those who work in Human Resources think that they ought to be able to share this type of information out of the concern for the health of all of their employees. Still, the truth is that HIV isn't spread through casual contact and unless the sharing of bodily fluids is a normal part of a workday, there isn't much risk of infecting others.

The choice to disclose this information is a deeply personal one, and most HIV activists recommend that if someone is considering making their diagnosis public, that they contact a legal advocate first. Knowing your rights and getting the necessary information in order to prevent discriminator behavior is important.

If you, or someone you know, is living with HIV and concerned about the effects of their diagnosis becoming public, please visit The Well Project for guidance and support.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for HealthcareJobsiteBlog. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

A Look Back At 30 Years Of AIDS Research

A look back at the milestones in the 30 year battle against AIDS

It's been thirty years since the first sign of AIDS, and the battle is still raging on. Although many advances have been made, the disease is still alive and well. The first cases took the healthcare industry by storm and left them scrambling to understand the disease and find the appropriate treatment.

Let's take a look back at the milestones in this battle:

• June 1981 – The first reports out of Los Angeles stated that 5 young, homosexual men had all been diagnosed with pneumonia. Although no one could have guessed that these were the first AIDS cases, they definitely raised some eyebrows in the medical community.
  
  
• July 1981 – The New York Times ran an article about a rare skin cancer, called Kaposi's sarcoma that had been diagnosed in 41 homosexual men in New York and California. Doctors were unsure as to what had caused the infection and couldn't see any signs of contagion. Eventually the doctors found that the condition was caused by a compromised immune system and that it was a sexually transmitted infection. For the larger part of the year, doctors assumed the infection wouldn't effect non-homosexuals.
  
  
• 1982 – In May of 1982, the infection named GRID was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle. Medical professionals aren't comfortable with the name, Gay Related Immune Disorder. They fear that they are only seeing the beginning as more people start showing symptoms. Many of the people infected are not gay, and the first wave of patients who are IV drug users appear. By September, the CDC defines the disease as AIDS.
  
  
• December 1982 – The CDC reported that infants have contracted the disease after blood transfusions. This is the first time that it was speculated that the disease was contracted by blood and wasn't caused by homosexual contact or drug use.
  
  
• May 1983 – French researchers managed to isolate the AIDS virus and map the molecular structure. This allowed researchers to study and classify the disease as a T-lymphotropic retrovirus.
  
  
• 1985 – The FDA approves the first blood test to detect the AIDS virus. Although it was used primarily to remove infected blood from blood banks, many doctors started using the test to diagnose patients. Many people wanted to be tested, to ensure that they weren't passing the virus along to others, but there was a great deal of controversy about how such tests should be administered.
  
  
• March 1987 – The drug AZT was approved by the FDA as the first drug to treat the virus. The drug quickly went into trials and the approval process was expedited. Although the drug slowed the progression of the disease, it didn't cure it. By 1994, AZT was proven to severely limit the risk of passing along the virus from mother to child.
  
  
• 1994 – Researcher start to notice that some of the people who are infected with HIV never have developed AIDS. Scientists start to study the patients blood and tissue samples to determine what sort of immunities or other factors as a way to find more effective treatments for the disease.
  
  
• 1995 – An AIDS patient participates in an experiment to try to get rid of the virus. He undergoes a bone marrow transplant using baboon marrow, hoping that the natural protection that primates have against the disease could help find a cure. His body rejects the baboon marrow and he dies of AIDS related complications shortly thereafter. This opens up new research possibilities.
  
  
• 1995 – The FDA approves a new drug to combat HIV and AIDS. These protease inhibitors were offered for free and showed promise of stopping the virus as it progresses through the body. It had few side effects and did a better job of reducing the viral load in HIV patients. It seemed as though the drug held a great deal of promise. Complications came when patients became resistant to the drug very quickly.
  
  
• 1996 – AIDS researchers, Dr. David Ho and Dr. George Shaw prove that the HIV virus replicated aggressively from the beginning of the infection. They recommend a triple drug cocktail, combining the new protease inhibitors, AZT and 3TC, a drug that helps prevent drug resistance. This “AIDS Cocktail” reduces the rates of death and hospitalization in HIV and AIDS patients by 60 to 80 percent.
  
  
• 2008 – The first patient ever was cured of AIDS. Timothy Brown received a bone marrow transplant in addition to other medical treatments. His viral load decreased to an undetectable level. 4 years after he stopped taking the AIDS cocktail, he still has no trace of the virus.
  
  
• 2008 – The scientists who isolated the AIDS virus received the Nobel Prize.
  
  
• 2010 – Researchers have come up with a vaginal gel that can prevent the transmission of the HIV virus by almost 50 percent. This break-though was designed to help women protect themselves, because condom use and abstinence requires the co-operation of their partner. The gel is given to women in areas of Africa where the HIV rates are highest.

The search for a cure for HIV is still ongoing. This disease has ravaged every culture, every country in the world. It isn't just a “gay disease”, as was originally thought. In fact, this virus took the world by storm and sent medical professionals to understand the disease and learn how to prevent it.

I can only hope that the next 10 years will bring even more progress.

What do you think about the history of this disease? Let me know in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for HealthcareJobsiteBlog. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.

Study Shows HIV Patients At Higher Risk Of Stroke

U.S. researchers concluded Wednesday that people infected with the AIDS virus may, in fact, be more than three times more likely to suffer a stroke than those people who are not infected.

While the number of strokes suffered in the U.S. seems to be trending down (7.2% in 2006 compared to 1997), they've significantly spiked in regards to people with HIV, rising an unfathomable 67% during that same time frame.

"Generally speaking, strokes in patients with HIV are not common, so the rise is notable," said Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele of the University of California, San Diego, and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, whose study appears in the journal Neurology.

The study doesn't show why stroke rates are rising, but researchers say the study period coincides with widespread use of drugs used to treat HIV infection. Another possibility - since strokes occur more frequently in older people - these patients who are taking the treatments are prolonging their lives and unfortunately putting themselves in the risk zone for stroke.

The team wants to study the relationship between HIV drugs and stroke more closely.

An estimated 33.3 million people worldwide have the HIV virus that causes AIDS and more than 25 million have died from it. Without treatment, the virus destroys the immune system, leaving patients susceptible to infections and cancer.

More than 20 HIV drugs are now on the market and can be combined in various ways to control the virus.

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Bambi Blue is a freelance writer, editor, and social butterfly living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. When she's not blogging her little heart out for HealthCareJobsite.com, she moonlights as a jazz musician and most apparently a weisenheimer. Loves to cook, hates to clean, and can easily be found on Twitter. To read more of Bambi's posts, head to HealthCareJobsite.com and see additional job postings at Beyond.com.

For The First Time Ever, A Man Has Been Officially Cured Of HIV

This post isn't about finding a job in the healthcare industry, but the news was so amazing, I felt that I had to share it with you. According to several recent reports, for the first time ever, a man has been officially cured of HIV. Yes, you read that right. Officially cured. Although the medical treatment he received was risky and could well have killed him, it gives us all a glimmer of hope that an honest to goodness cure might be found within our lifetimes.

I don't need to tell you how devastating the HIV virus is. I am old enough to remember the 80's and early 90's when so many people were dying from this disease. For many years, it was thought to be God's plague sent to eliminate homosexuals, and there was little to no medical research about it. In a very shameful period of our history, before it was officially called HIV, it was called GRID, standing for Gay Related Immune Disorder.

After watching several people I cared about die from the virus, I was hopeful when research found a way to manage the illness through the use of medications. But still, the outlook for finding a cure seemed bleak. But, this new breakthrough opens the door to the possibility that we may be able to get rid of this virus for good.

Timothy Brown was diagnosed with leukemia along with HIV in 2007. And since HIV is considered a manageable disease, the biggest concern for his doctors at Germany's Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital was the bone cancer. The treatment he received was very aggressive, including chemotherapy that wiped out majority of his immune system.

After the radiation, he underwent a very risky stem-cell transplant that is so dangerous that almost a third of the patients don't survive the treatment. When the doctors chose the stem cell donor, they selected someone who has a very rare genetic mutation that makes him almost invulnerable to HIV. With his immune system wiped out by the chemotherapy, the healthy stem-cell transplant caused his immune system to become charged with the HIV resistant cells.

In the few days following the stem-cell transplant, doctors were optimistic about having destroyed the virus, but weren't willing to say that the virus was gone for good. But now, after not having not taken the HIV antiretroviral drugs since his stem-cell transplant, and after having extensive testing, all of which show no signs of the HIV virus, his doctors have declared him officially cured.

It isn't clear yet what this means for the future treatment of the virus. The procedure that Brown underwent is risky and caused him tremendous amounts of suffering. Not many people would be strong enough to attempt it or be able to afford it. But it does give us all hope just knowing that it can be cured and not just managed with medication. This medical miracle will open up new areas for research and provide clues for researchers to find a viable cure.

Source:

AidsMap

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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.