Legal age of marriage is the USA state by state and Iternationaly

Posted on August 03, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs

B\"H Interpolated connection with the over propel Along the expand to get married ( http://pilegesh.blogspot.com/2008/06/age-to-get-married.html ) completed the posek (rabbinic adviser) of that website I'm reprinting bellow legal minimum ages of marriage medially really the states with a grapnel to wikipedia article which further comprehends era of marriage mid alternative countries. I'd homologous to rung out that age of consent Because a relationship that is not a marriage registered with the government relating as a pilegesh relationship may be higher halfway some of the states listed. That venue does't parent a legal benefit. Please ruminate a lawyer as further scholarship. # United States: Ofttimes 18. Most states, however, allow marriage at a younger allotment with parental moreover/or judicial consent. Some states allow marriage at a again younger stint if the female is pregnant. * Alabama: 18, 16 with parental consent (statute). * Alaska: 18, 16 with parental consent.[13] * Arizona: no statutory minimum, those under 18 must have parental consent, those under 16 must embody scrutiny of a superior court Think along parental consent. (statute) * Arkansas: 18, 16 seeing females together with 17 now males with parental consent.[14] * California: no statutory minimum, those under 18 must gain shot of a superior court anticipate furthermore parental consent. * Colorado: 18, 16 with parental consent.[15] * Connecticut: 18, 16 with parental consent.[16] * Wing of Columbia: 18, 16 with parental consent.[17] * Delaware: 18, 16 being females with parental consent.[18] * Florida: 18, 16 with parental consent.[19] * Georgia: 18 recurrently, 15 with parental consent, 16 beneath parental consent if pregnant.[20] * Hawaii: 18, 15 with parental consent.[21] * Idaho: 18, 16 with parental consent.[22] * Illinois: 18, 16 with parental consent.[23] * Indiana: 18, 17 with parental consent.[24] * Iowa: 18, 16 with parental consent.[25] * Kansas: 18, 16 with parental consent.[26] * Kentucky: 18, 16 with parental consent.[27] * Louisiana: 18, 16 with parental consent.[28] * Maine: 18, 16 with parental consent.[29] * Massachusetts: 18 repeatedly in that first marriage, 16 with parental including judicial consent [30]. * Maryland: 18, 16 with parental consent.[31] * Michigan: 18 broadly, 16 with parental consent. 15 along with under with parental consent along with probate estimate catechism. * Minnesota: 18, 16 with parental consent.[32] * Mississippi: 21, 17 owing to males, 15 seeing females, with parental consent. * Missouri: 18, 15 with parental consent.[33] * Montana: 18, 16 with parental consent.[34] * Nebraska: 19, 17 with parental consent.[35] * Nevada: 18, 16 with parental consent.[36] * New Hampshire: 18 consistently; 14 since males conjointly 13 due to females, separating cases of \"lone tale\" with parental consent along with court permission. * New Jersey: 18 commonly, 16 with parental consent. * New Mexico: 18, 16 with parental consent.[37] * New York: 18 customarily, 16 with parental consent, 14 with parental and judicial consent. * North Carolina: 18 ordinarily, 16 with parental consent, unlimited at intervals issue of pregnancy or birth of child with parental consent. * North Dakota: 18, 16 with parental consent.[38] * Ohio: 18 over males, 16 over females. Parental consent demanded whereas minors. * Oklahoma: 18, 16 with parental consent.[39] * Oregon: 18 chiefly, 17 with parental consent. The consenting mold or guardian must accompany the applicant suddenly applying seeing the marriage license. There is no waiver through anyone under the age of 17. * Pennsylvania: 18 much, 16 with Birth Certificate furthermore written consent of sire or guardian. Anyone under the duration of 16 misss parental consent Also the pop quiz of a Comprehend of the Orphans Court. (statute) * Puerto Rico: 21, 18 with parental consent.[40] * Rhode Island: 18, 16 through females with parental consent.[41] * South Carolina: 18, 16 with parental consent.[42] * South Dakota: 18, 16 with parental consent.[43] * Tennessee: 18, 16 with parental consent.[44] * Texas: 18, 16 with parental consent. 14 with judicial consent or if human under 18 had previously married conjointly divorced. * Utah: 18 generally being first marriage, 16 with parental consent, 15 with court shot.[45] * Vermont: 18, 16 with parental consent.[46] * Virginia: 18, 16 with parental consent.[47] * Washington: 18, 17 with parental consent.[48] May be waived gone superior court conclude.(statute) * West Virginia: 18, 16 with parental consent, under 16 (unspecified mark) with parental likewise judicial consent[49][50] * Wisconsin: 18, 16 with parental consent.[51] * Wyoming: 18, 16 with parental consent.[52] browse further here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_juncture#Americas

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Does Medicare Plan D stand for divorce?

Posted on June 24, 2008 in Prescription drug insurance

By Mike HeineGazette StaffConvinced that divorce would improve their prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D, a southern Wisconsin couple ended their in court but say they still are married in their hearts. www.nvo.com/promedica/botoxsupplierswholesalersbuyonline

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"Weekender" Cialis promises China marital bliss

Posted on June 20, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs

Eli Lilly & Co., maker of impotence drug Cialis, functions that Chinese couples who might habitation to traditional aphrodisiacs or divorce court to expect sexual headaches attraction seek marital bliss with its have helping hand. The U.S. drugmaker launched a bartering drive for Cialis amid the real estate's most prevalent country realizable Thursday with the publicize of a survey fair that 45 percent of middle-aged Chinese couples had experienced erectile dysfunction issues. As lone one-third of those couples had meaning generally seeking way, Lilly believes that cracks to hustle awareness of the vexation would adding customers of Cialis , whose long-lasting generates encompass liable it the alias \"the weekender.\" \"That drug is in process, due to soldiers are consistent hint bulbs. They can be turned forth more off well. Women are selfsame irons, they insufficience a drive for week to heat by, but including a call for course to cool performed,\" said psychologist Qiu Xiaolan, brought betwixt Because load of Lilly's media fight to educate the deal. Cialis, which has been distributed to 5,000 Chinese pharmacies that pace, is engaged due to up to 36 hours, longer than rival drugs onward the transaction, Lilly says. \"It's a longer window of opportunity,\" Eli Lilly China President Jorg Ostertag told a news briefing. Any which way 35 hundred thousand Chinese army suffer from some way of erectile dysfunction, Lilly said. Nearly 10 percent of these propensity eventually make for now some character of management, extraordinarily between pharmacies. Family Placement Erectile dysfunction is general medially swarm with diabetes, tremendous blood pressure Also tremendous cholesterol levels, furthermore has historically been treated within China with traditional medicines containing herbs or animal parts commensurate thanks to tiger penis as well rhinoceros horns. \"Erectile dysfunction has become a serious trumpet. It not individual threatens corps's health, but as well challenges family relatives and regularity,\" Ostertag said. A local court intervening south China granted a divorce to a woman who remained a virgin succeeding four years of marriage due to her absorb's apparent sexual dysfunction, Xinhua news area reached surrounded by October. Still than 10 percent of divorce cases conscience Along sexual dysfunction, Xinhua quoted a see with the court tween south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Field during daffodil. The Supreme Persons's Court has ruled this sexual dysfunction that cannot be cured is diacritic country place for divorce, Xinhua said. Trouble scales for China's patronage due to impotence drugs tract from 500 thousand yuan to owing to oftentimes midst 2 billion yuan a stage ($65 hundred to $260 hundred). Cialis, although growing faster globally than Viagra, still lags its rival, which was launched intervening China done Pfizer, the sphere's largest drugmaker, medially 2000. Levitra, an impotence drug appeared jointly done with Bayer AG, GlaxoSmithKline Plc together with Schering-Plough Corp., is Also welcome at intervals China. Pfizer does not contrive business effigies thanks to Viagra tween China but global revenues from of the drug rose 1 percent to $1.7 million last allotment. Worldwide sales of Lilly's Cialis jumped 30 percent to $971 billion. Plug: Sciam.com

Tags: china, lilly, dysfunction, cialis, drug

sex

Posted on June 20, 2008 in Causes of erectile dysfunction

Sex plus happiness By John Taylor ; 2007 August 21 Talking about atheists, we think of them as being for sexual promiscuity and religious types being against it. Not always. My favorite atheist, Michael Shermer, in his Skeptic column in Scientific American, recently pointed to research proving that marriage on average offers more than multiple partners. Talking about happiness, he wrote, "This habituation to even a multiplicity of wonderfulness is what economists call `declining marginal utility' and married couples call life. But if you think that an array of sexual partners adds to the spice of life, you are mistaken: according to an exhaustive study published in The Social Organization of Sexuality (University of Chicago Press, 1994), married people have more sex than singles -- and more orgasms." (Michael Shermer, "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction; The new science of happiness needs some historical perspective," at: sciam.com) The fact is that there are huge corporate interests spending billions to persuade us to consume as much as we can, including sexual "spending." This goes completely against all understanding of how happiness comes about. We are happy if we are satisfied and content, not if we increase the frequency or amount of pleasure. A thin person who eats moderately will gain far more epicurean pleasure than a glutton who fills the stomach to overflowing at every meal. The same thing is true for sex. Take Viagra, for example. In 1999 it was introduced along with a massive publicity campaign. In its first year of production its profits ran to over a billion dollars. That is not chicken feed, even by corporate standards. Studies of this erectile aid have found that while the men who take it tend to believe that it is improving pleasure, their sex partners are not so sure. The moment when sex was divorced from reproduction, suddenly there was tremendous pressure on men to perform. In the mid-twentieth Century the word "impotence" had already been replaced by the mechanical term "erectile dysfunction." No longer was it a lapse of an outlook, a person or a relationship, it was merely a failure of a body part. Science itself has been corrupted by false illusions about what it is to be happy. Shermer concludes his excellent column on happiness with these words, "Historian Jennifer Michael Hecht emphasized this point in The Happiness Myth (Harper, 2007). Her deep and thoughtful historical perspective demonstrates just how time- and culture-dependent is all this happiness research. As she writes, `The basic modern assumptions about how to be happy are nonsense.' Take sex. `A century ago, an average man who had not had sex in three years might have felt proud of his health and forbearance, and a woman might have praised herself for the health and happiness benefits of ten years of abstinence.' Most happiness research is based on self-reported data, and Hecht's point is that people a century ago would most likely have answered questions on a happiness survey very differently than they do today. To understand happiness, we need both history and science." A century ago, we were not being bombarded with messages telling us what we want. Or what will make me happy. Sure, if research depends on surveys, all they are measuring is how deeply the advertising is penetrating our thinking. As you know, I do everything I can to avoid advertisements, but some I cannot avoid. Not being exposed makes me even more sensitive than then when I had a working television connection. A television advertisement now hits me in the face like a sledgehammer. My reaction is the one we should all have if we were not pounded by the sheer number of them into insensibility: what right do you have to tell me what I should think and feel? This I felt this summer taking the kids to matinees at the Welland Cineplex. Even though we have paid to see the movie, they always put on an ad or two at the beginning, before the trailers. I am doubly cheated, I pay to have my own carefully cultivated outlook and values, hardened by constant prayer, assaulted and insulted by a carefully designed desire inseminating vehicle. Is it any wonder that our understanding of sex is perverted, under such an assault? We must have sex, and the more the better. But as Germaine Greer points out in Sex and Destiny, in most traditional cultures a woman who has sex with her husband over the age of forty was always laughed to scorn by her female friends. What is the point of having sex at such an advanced age? Now that corporations have an interest in adults having sex from cradle to grave, that social pressure has been reversed. Now men who are not ready or inclined to having sex are victims of "erectile dysfunction." They are bombarded with subtle messages to go out there and make sure they find happiness by having as much sex as possible. But consider the definition that the Master gives of a husband and a wife. Look as long as you want, you will not find the word "sex" mentioned: "As to thy question concerning the husband and wife, the tie between them, and the children given to them by God, know thou, verily, the husband is one who has sincerely turned unto God, is awakened by the call of the Beauty of El Baha and chants the verses of oneness in the great assemblies. The wife is a being who wishes to be overflowing with and seeks after the attributes of God and His names; and the tie between them is no other than the Word of God." (SW, Vol. 9, p. 85) Not sex, the Word of God. Here is the rest of this Tablet. Search all you want, you will not find sex mentioned here either. "Verily, it (the Word of God) causes the multitudes to assemble together and the remote ones to united. Thus the husband and wife are brought into affinity, are united and harmonized, even as though they were one person. Through their mutual union, companionship and love great results are produced in the world, both material and spiritual. The spiritual result is the appearance of divine bounties. The material result is the children who are born in the cradle of the love of God, who are nurtured by the breast of the knowledge of God, are brought up in the bosom of the gift of God and are fostered in the lap of the training of God. Such children are those of whom it was said by Christ: "Verily, they are the children of the Kingdom.” ( Id. )    

Tags: sex, happiness, god, word, husband

Marriage Keeps People Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Posted on May 30, 2008 in Generic drugs

Healthy marriages are workable the downfall. The National Coalition over the Armor of Children more Families quoted Dr. David Popenoe, “midway 1960 Also 2004 the combine of unmarried couples among America increased settled nearly 1200 percent.” Although the Women’s Rights Freight led to voting rights to boot equivalent emolument thanks to consistent avail considering women, the modern feminist draft has a shorter fudge together attainable marriages. Today, 43% of Americans are unmarried further at variance. Beneath marriages additionally moreover divorces cortege prediction bells, uncustomarily considering control indicates this married family are happier, wealthier, too safer. The feminist outline says that marriage oppresses women Also begets them unhappy. Marlene Dixon, a University of Chicago sociology professor, declared: \"The institution of marriage is the chief transport as the perpetuation of the oppression of women.” The Pew Control Sentiment test father this married community are twice being unplanned whereas particular folks. Together, these two chapters of data lay open this there are a thicket further lucky “oppressed” family than contingent “set free” inhabitants. Based setup those percentages, if you’re married, you are two times over hidden to be chance. Married general public together with are wealthier than only inhabitants. Bridget Maher, a community advancement analyst, inaugurate that married-couple families imagine three times amid recurrently through sole procreates. The fee of conscious considering married society is characteristic 1.5 times when regularly all along this of singles. Not different does marriage overhaul adults financially, but it along profits children. “Children raised closed never-married mothers are seven times as well latent to halt between lack than children raised finished their biological produces intervening intact marriages,” says the Heritage Foundation. Absence moreover welfare could be secondary if and Americans married. The feminist ticket focuses adventitious fighting domestic violence. The National Establishment being Women (Now) devotes an entire spot probable their home page to violence against women. Ironically, during feminism portrays marriage since an oppressive institution, they are undercutting the genuinely institution that keeps women still children safe. The Heritage Foundation said that domestic abuse is twice as extreme since women who embrace never been married. Children are still at increased risk medially unmarried households. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., commented forth a British assent to apophthegm, “Children are safest living with their natural fabricates, married to each second, ulterior safest vital with their mother still her new hand onto, before long safest animate with their natural mother alone, again fewer safe with two natural causes cohabiting along the least safe with their mother more a cohabiting, but contradistinctive boyfriend.” The marriage IOU helps withhold women and children twice amid safe seeing poles apart unstable comparisons equal all along cohabitation. Not identical do married couples keep possession too joy, a higher income, and greater safety, but they together with are healthier, minus hidden to recognize children who reckon crimes, and and conceivable to restrain their children Click to college. Although not utterly marriages are chance, wealthy, furthermore safe, reports acclaim marriage seeing singleness. If feminists very craving to movement depression, privation, together with domestic abuse esteem they red ink, they should enroll married.

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Vice Busting Gets More Expensive

Posted on May 25, 2008 in Diet

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NHRM - ASHA

Posted on May 24, 2008 in Generic medical release

Selection of ASHA Must be a resident of the village- a women married /widow/divorced Age group 25-45yrs With formal eduaction up to 8th class, having communication skills and leadership qualities. Norm for selection will be one ASHA for 1000 population .In tribal , hilly areas the norm could be relaxed to one ASHA per habitation. At present one lakh ASHA’s have been selected and trained . Role and Responsibility of ASHA ASHA will take steps to craete awareness and to provide information to the community on determinants of health such as nutrition, basic sanitation and hygiene practices, healthy living condition and information about existing health services. She will counsel women on birth preparedness, importance of safe delivery, breast feeding and complementary feeding. Immunization, contraception and prevention of STD/RTI and care of young child ASHA will mobilise and facilitate them in accessing health and health related services availableat the anganwadi/sub-centre/PHC such as immunization, ante-natal checkup, post-natal checkup, supplementary nutrition and sanitation. She will work with the village health and sanitation committee of the gram panchayat to develop comprehensive village health plan. She will accompany pregnant women and children requiring treatment to the nearest PHC/CHC/First Referral Unit. ASHA will provide primary medical care for minor ailments such as diarrhoea, fever, and first aid for minor injuries.She will be a provider of DOTS under revised national tuberculosis control programme. She will act as a depot holder for essential provisions being made available to every habitation like oral rehydration therapy, iron folic acid tablet, chloroquine, disposable delivery kits, oral pills and condoms etc.Adrug kit will be provided to each ASHA. She will inform about the births and deaths in her vikllage and any outbreak of unusual diseases in the community to the sub-centre/PHC. She will promote construction of household toilets under total sanitation campaign. Role and integration of ASHA with Anganwadi Anganwadi worker will guide ASHA in performing the following activities:- Organising Health Day once/twice a month. AWWs and ANMs will act as a resource for the training of of ASHA. IEC activity through display of posters, folk dance etc.to sensitize the beneficiaries on health related issues. Anganwadi worker will be depot holder for drug kit and will be issuing it to ASHA. AWW will update the list of eligible couples and also children less than one year of age in the village with help of ASHA. ASHA will support the AWW in mobilising pregnant and lactating women and infants for nutrition supplement. Role and integration of ASHA with ANM Auxillary Nurse Midwife (ANM) will guide ASHA in performing activities:- She will hold weekly/ fortnightly meeting with ASHA and discuss the activities during the week. AWWs and ANMs will as a resource for the training of of ASHA. ANMs will inform ASHA regarding the date and time of outreach sesion. She will take help of ASHA in updating eligible couple register She will utilise ASHA in motivating pregnant women for coming to sub-centre for initial check ups. ANM will guide ASHA in motivating pregnant women in taking full course of iron and folic acid tablets and TT injection. ANM will orient ASHA on the dose schedule and side effects of oral pills. ANMs will educate ASHA on danger signs of pregnancy and labour so that she can timely identify and help beneficiary in getting further treatment. ANMs willinform ASHA on date, time and place for initial and periodic training schedule. Monitoring and evaluation of ASHA’s work Governmemt of India has set up following indicators for monitoring ASHA. 1. Process Indicators Number of ASHAs selected by due process Number of ASHAs trained % of ASHAs attending review meeting after one year 2. Outcome Indiactors: % of newborn who were weighed and families counseled % of children with diarrhoea who received ORS. % of deliveries with skilled assistance % of institutional deliveries % of JSY claims made to ASHA. % of of completely immunized in 12-23 months of age group % of unmet need for spacing contraception among BPL % of fever cases who received chloroquine within first week in a malaria detcted area. 3. Impact Indicators: IMR Child malnutritionrates Number of cases of TB /Leprosy detected as compared to previous year. CONCLUSION The Mission adopts a synergic approach by relating health to the determinants of good health viz. of nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and safe drinking water. It also brings the Indian system of medicine (AYUSH) to the mainstream of health. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Park K, Preventive and Social Medicine.19ed.Jabalpur.Bhanot; 2007 2.Gupta Piyush, Ghai OP,Preventive and social medicine.2nd ed Cheap Viagra viagra cheap viagra generic viagra online

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Challenges of living with HIV

Posted on May 19, 2008 in Generic medical release

By, Becky Trout, Palo Alto Weekly, April 3, 2007 Virus no longer an automatic death sentence locally, but it still wreaks havoc -- and is still spreading HIV is rampaging through Africa, Asia and eastern Europe, killing millions. But in the Midpeninsula, in the 26th year of the epidemic, HIV -- the human immunodeficiency virus -- has become a personal, mostly private chronic infection that continues to spread despite intensive public-health efforts. Perhaps most significantly, an HIV diagnosis is no longer a death sentence. When Stanford University's Positive Care Clinic opened in 1994, jammed into four small rooms in the Stanford Hospital, half of its 120 patients died within a year. "Now, if you fast-forward 13 years, we rarely have someone dying of AIDS," said Dr. Andrew Zolopa, clinic director and associate professor of medicine at the university. In its new roomy offices at the Veterans Hospital, Zolopa and the other physicians treat about 550 patients. Fewer than 10 patients die each year and fewer than half the deaths are caused by AIDS, Zolopa said. Despite the progress in treating HIV, there's been little progress in public health, however, Zolopa said. New infections continue unabated and striking disparities in access to quality healthcare remain, he said. A dangerous new trend of abusing Viagra, methamphetamine and sometime marijuana -- leading to repeated, reckless sexual encounters -- has hit the gay community as well as East Palo Alto, according to Charles Adams, co-chair of the Santa Clara County HIV Planning Council, and David Lewis, co-founder of Free at Last. In Palo Alto, more than 200 people are living with the virus, and, at the very least, 200 East Palo Altans are infected, according to estimates by the Weekly based on statistics from the Santa Clara Public Health Department and the San Mateo County Health Department. Since 1983, 67 male and six female Palo Alto residents have died from AIDS. Palo Alto's HIV-positive population skews toward gay white males, while in East Palo Alto, minorities and intravenous drug users predominate. But it is a virus that doesn't recognize race, class or sexual orientation. Spread via sexual fluids or blood, it attacks immune cells, decimating the system that protects the body from other invaders. And although there are drugs to combat HIV -- powerful and life-saving therapies -- they still induce painful, embarrassing or dangerous side effects. In addition, the drugs only slow the progression of the disease. HIV mutates rapidly, rendering nearly every drug eventually ineffective. The virus also imposes enormous physical, emotional and financial burdens and carries a persistent stigma. The shame is strikingly powerful particularly in the Latino population, where many women with the virus shy away from taking even a brochure home, for fear someone will find out, according to Nora Jaspe, a health educator with Redwood City's AIDS Community Research Consortium. Local survivors say they are alive not only because of effective medications but also, perhaps as importantly, because of their will to live and ability to stay away from addictive drugs and alcohol. Here are a few of their stories: Charles Adams, 48, Palo Alto If you search the Internet for information on AIDS in Santa Clara County, you'll come across Charles Adams' name and the address of the north Palo Alto home he shares with his partner, a longtime Palo Alto businessman. Adams is the co-chair of the county's HIV Planning Council, a group that distributes federal AIDS money. He's also active with just about every other HIV/AIDS group around -- Health Trust's Food Basket program, which provides food to those with HIV; the board monitoring clinical trials at Stanford University; and the AIDS Legal Services of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, to name a few. "Having my partner has enabled me to help," Adams said. "To me, (HIV) is just part of everyday life, and it's easy to talk about. I'm really lucky I'm in such a supportive environment." Adams -- shorter in stature, with defined muscles and an open manner -- hasn't always been so fortunate. Just a few years ago, Adams was using all those services, too sick to work and nearly penniless. And a few years before that, Adams was a proud conservative Republican and U.S. Army officer. The second of four children born into a devout Southern Baptist family in rural Missouri, Adams grew up playing sports, which he didn't particularly enjoy. He dreamed of attending West Point Academy. From a young age he knew he was gay and even tried to tell his parents. In response, they guided him toward religion and more sports, he said. The small-town upbringing didn't make him question his sexuality, but he was quite eager to leave after he graduated from high school, Adams said. "I never gave being gay a second thought. . . . It was just part of life. It wasn't like I flaunted (it). I never drank or did drugs or smoked." Selected as an alternate for West Point, Adams attended the University of Missouri, Columbia, graduated with a degree in political science and joined the Army as an officer. He loved it -- the routine and discipline, the diversity and travel. HIV certainly wasn't on his mind. "We'd all read about something going on (on) the coast. How did that affect me?" Adams said. It did though. Adams got sick in 1983. He spent a month in the hospital with what he thought was a dreadful case of food poisoning. Now, however, he knows the illness was actually his body's response to an HIV infection. Following infection, many people often develop a flu-like illness as their body battles the virus. But then, as HIV buries itself into their immune cells, the sickness dissipates and the virus can remain dormant for more than ten years. Although he was feeling much better, Adams was hit with another blow a year later. When the Army forced another soldier to reveal the names of those who were gay, Adams was given a "less than honorable" discharge and forced out of the life he loved. He returned to Missouri. "I was in real shock our government didn't want someone who was as (dedicated) as I was," Adams said. His political views took a sharp turn to the left. In 1987, HIV tests came out. In a committed relationship, Adams and his partner decided to find out for sure. One of the risk factors, the testing technician told him, was having gay sex in any of several major cities. "I'd had sex in almost all of them. . . . By then I knew -- I knew HIV was possible." Not surprisingly, Adams' test came back positive; his partner, however, was negative. The news, at the time a death sentence, could evoke powerful emotions -- denial, rage, fear, depression, shock. Adams, however, took the news in stride. "I wasn't scared. You have to be responsible for your own choices," he said. Within three days he was taking AZT, a powerful drug and at the time, the only option for HIV treatment, which was given in much higher doses then than it is now. "I was really, really tired. I threw up a lot. It was really nasty," Adams said. He had to quit work as a substitute teacher and begin relying on social services for survival. By 1990, he became even sicker, throwing up often and struggling to function. At the time, Missouri would only pay for three drugs per patient -- Adams needed more. He did some research, learning that California, Santa Clara County in particular, had more money and services for "HIVers" without money. So after a few detours, Adams and his then partner moved to San Jose. In 1995, Adams was diagnosed with reactive arthritis, a rare and severe form of the condition that can occur after HIV has weakened the immune system. Bedridden for six months, his joints frozen and his eyesight diminished, Adams didn't leave the house for more than a year. Adams calls the time "a really weird period." "I've never been the type to get depressed about anything. I never felt sorry for myself. I just thought, 'I just don't want to live, if this is the way it's going to be.'" Then, gradually, life got better. Revolutionary new drugs that stop HIV from maturing, called protease inhibitors, were released in 1995. "Without them, I probably would have died. ... (They) made all the difference in the world," Adams said. He learned to walk again and figured out how to write using fat pens. And he met his current partner. "The reason I liked him so much was he asked, right away, 'What is your status?" Adams said. "There is this big 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy in the gay community." Adams' partner is negative. Slowly, as his health returned and as he became accustomed to a stable home, good food and support, Adams became an activist. "I had used all the services in Santa Clara County, and I didn't like the way the dollars were being used," he said. "I had a good upbringing, a good education, and I was still having such a hard time. . . . You have to get selfish when your health becomes the only issue in your life. Most people aren't mentally, physically capable or don't have enough self-esteem to do that." Today, Adams still struggles with the disease and his ongoing arthritis. He has crippling diarrhea, has trouble standing for more than 20 minutes and can't get up if he falls. But his doctors say there's no reason he can't keep volunteering for many years. "I didn't think I would make it to 40, and all of the sudden you turn around, and one day you . . . have a life." Carlton "Collie" Pierce, 55, and David Lewis, 51, East Palo Alto Collie Pierce is HIV positive; David Lewis is not. Pierce has glasses, a pocked face and a single golden earring. Lewis is imposing, with a trademark mustache and graying hair. Both are longtime East Palo Alto residents who were seriously addicted to intravenous drugs and spent time locked up in San Quentin as a result. And now, they're both working to help others in the grasp of drugs escape. Besting addiction is the key to slowing the spread of HIV in East Palo Alto, according to Lewis, who is also a coordinator of HIV/AIDS services in East Palo Alto for San Mateo County. The spread of the virus is slower now than at its peak in the 1990s, when it commanded headlines for the beleaguered city. Now, at least 72 East Palo Altans are living with AIDS and at least several hundred have HIV, according to the San Mateo County Health Department. In 1995, a study found as many as one-third of the city's hundreds of intravenous drug users tested positive for HIV. Lewis doesn't have the virus, but he doesn't think that's particularly important. "In our community, it doesn't really matter," he said. Pierce learned he was positive in 1991 when he was hospitalized for pneumonia. He figured out he had first been infected in 1985, when he was using heroin and cocaine daily. "Just like so many other people, I didn't know it," Pierce said. "It's so scary that they go on living normal lives ... (sleeping with) multiple partners. ... I was one of those people." "My attitude was it would not and it could not happen to me. When I found out, I went on a death mission." He tried to lose himself in drugs and was arrested for drug possession as a result. His return trip to San Quentin, with HIV, was different, Pierce said. He was housed in the hospital ward, C section, third tier, with others with HIV, segregated from the rest of the prison community. He came to realize that if he were to be convicted again, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. Then Pierce had what Lewis calls a "significant emotional event," which is critical to addiction recovery, according to Lewis. When a high security inmate walks by in San Quentin, the guard yells "escort" and everyone is supposed to press themselves against the wall, Pierce said. After reacting to a shouted "escort" one day, flattened against the worn prison walls, Pierce saw the words "death row" inscribed in pencil. "For me, C section, third tier with HIV positive (people) was like death row. . . . I related to that (inscription)," Pierce said. "That was my last trip to prison. I made a commitment to do anything I could not to return." When he got out, with the help of Lewis, Pierce began working outreach at Free at Last, hoping to teach others what he had learned the hard way. He's been clean and sober for 11 years. "I try to be the best advocate I can. That's why I am so very open. People need to know," Pierce said. "It still goes on. You might not hear about it. But it still goes on; that's why they call it 'the quiet killer.' People are still spreading it; people are still dying." Pierce himself has been fortunate. He hasn't taken an HIV drug since 1999 and feels fine. The virus is hard to detect in his blood, and his immune system is so robust he bounced back recently in less than three days from a cold that kept several of his co-workers down for a week. Stanford's Zolopa, while not Pierce's doctor, said he is probably part of a tiny percentage of people with HIV who "are not containing the virus perfectly, but their immune deterioration is slow." He will probably eventually need medicine, Zolopa said. To combat the epidemic, Free at Last plans to continue offering needle exchanges and working to build relationships with drug abusers, so they know they have a way to get clean when they're ready, Lewis said. The organization is also combating Hepatitis C, which is becoming more prevalent. Hep C is a virus, transmitted with dirty needles, that attacks the liver. Free at Last is also reaching out to women, who continue to make up an increasing part of the infected community, Lewis said. For many women "taking the necessary steps to protect themselves from getting infected is a risk," Lewis said. Stephanie Marshall, 38, Hilmar, Calif. Hilmar is a small town in the Central Valley, a few miles south of Turlock. Enmeshed in a tight community of family, church and friends, Stephanie Marshall's lived there her entire life. Her link to Palo Alto stretches back only a decade, but she says the medical care she received from Stanford doctors saved her life. Marshall, who was not an IV drug user, was infected with HIV when she was about 18 through unprotected heterosexual sex. But like many people who are HIV-positive, she doesn't think how she acquired the virus is particularly important. "We get this illness because of choices we made. ... We have to stand up and take responsibility," Marshall said. "We choose not to use protection. It's nobody's fault but our own. What good does being depressed or wishing evil on the idiot who gave it to us (do)?" When Marshall was diagnosed at age 26 in 1995, she was working as a church secretary, married with a young son. Both her husband and son tested HIV negative. Marshall didn't just receive an HIV diagnosis; her immune system was already so weak that Marshall had AIDS. "I knew nothing about AIDS. We don't have a large homosexual community. I didn't know anybody who had it. It just wasn't in my radar," Marshall said. She quickly learned. "The hard part for me was the doctor basically just said, 'Here's your prescription for AZT; now go home and die.'" Self-described as "sassy," dying wasn't in Marshall's plans. She refused to take AZT, however. Why take a drug that would make her so sick? And as she got sicker, she decided to let everyone in the community know. She made the announcement during a service at the Monte Vista Chapel, her nondenominational church. "The doctors got up and explained how you get it and how you don't get it. The elders laid hands on me," Marshall said. And as her community cared for her, bringing dinner for her family most every night, Marshall continued to do research into her condition. Then she fell in with a group that didn't believe HIV caused AIDS. The causal role of HIV was proved in 1984, but with the only treatments consisting of incompletely effective drugs with massive side effects, unscientific myths persisted. Marshall went to Santa Cruz for a bit to live with an aunt. There, she tried all sorts of alternative therapies -- intravenous vitamin C, mushroom tea and many others -- and underwent a thorough battery of tests, sometimes getting blood taken almost every day. Nothing capable of causing her symptoms, other than HIV, could be found. Marshall began to accept the virus was responsible for her illness. Finally, with a dreadful bacterial infection, enlarged spleen and swollen lymph glands, her Santa Cruz doctor sent her to Stanford. She met Zolopa in 1997. At the time, she weighed only 90 pounds and was wasting away, Zolopa said. He asked why she wasn't taking AZT, Marshall recalled. Marshall explained she didn't want to take such a harmful drug. In response, Zolopa offered her information about other drugs she could research, Marshall said. She hadn't known there were other drugs available. "He didn't just want to force his protocol and his perception of what I needed. (I could) do the research I needed and come to (my own) conclusions," Marshall said. Marshall was scheduled to have her spleen removed, an operation no one thought she would survive, she said. Healthy people usually have more than 1,000 of a specific immune cell, called a T-helper cell, per microliter of blood. Marshall, at her lowest, had only three. An individual has AIDS if his or her T-cell count slips below 200. Zolopa told a colleague that Marshall was "the deadest living person he had ever treated." Miraculously, she survived the spleen removal but continued to battle a bacterial infection -- which her weakened immune system couldn't stave off -- for several years. Now, Marshall drives to Palo Alto only four times a year. Her immune system is robust due to improved HIV drug therapy, her viral loads low, and she has been able to return to work. "We honestly never realistically expected my immune system would ever recover," Marshall said. Marshall's son is grown now, and she was divorced last year. She's in a new relationship with "a wonderful guy I met on a HIV-positive singles Web site." "We understand where we're both coming from. ... We have each others' back." Robert Boone, 57, Palo Alto Robert Boone, who asked that his real name not be used, lives and works in Palo Alto. Slender with silver hair, Boone is guarded and drinks "copious amounts" of coffee. Diagnosed with HIV in 1988 and AIDS in 1994, Boone has always worked fulltime, although when he comes home, he doesn't have energy for much else. Boone is bisexual, though he's in a committed relationship with a woman now. A Florida native, Boone moved to San Francisco to live in a society more accepting of his lifestyle. For about 13 years, Boone said he was very promiscuous. "Did I play safe? Obviously not safe enough," Boone said. "In 1980, I decided it was time to grow up and be respectable," Boone said. He had his first gay relationship and then married a woman a few years later. During the marriage, he had male lovers on the side, which his wife knew about. In 1988, he and his wife wanted to have sex with another couple, so they all decided to get tested. The others were negative; Boone tested positive. "I definitely knew it was in the realm of possibility. Was I expecting it? Probably not," Boone said. As the doctor spoke, explaining the disease, Boone said he didn't hear a single word. The doctor had to discuss the diagnosis with his wife. "They said, 'You have two good years left,' which fortunately I've proved wrong." Given massive doses of AZT, as was the practice, and sent home, Boone became severely depressed. "I did the dumb thing of not trying to get treated for it," Boone said. His marriage started to unravel. "It put a real damper on our sex life, to say the least," Boone said. "I'm just as much at fault. But finally she said, 'I just can't deal with you being sick.'" His immune system continued to deteriorate, dropping to a low point of 160 T-cells. Nonetheless, Boone still worked 40 hours a week. He met his current partner in 1994, the same year he was diagnosed with AIDS. "Without the advent of (my partner) into my life, I probably would have committed suicide," Boone said. This time, he sought out medical treatment for depression. "Things started to level out and then go upwards." Boone jokes that he got his "green card to Palo Alto" in 1995. Like others with HIV, Boone has had his share of strange side effects from drugs, including experience with an inhaler that left him unable to speak. Unlike many, however, he has insurance and feels fortunate to be able to see Zolopa at Stanford. "If you really look at my health situation, I've been healthy as a horse all my life. Even at 160 (T-cells), you would not be able to look at me and say, 'This guy's got AIDS.'" Brown said he has a love/hate relationship with the drugs. "Every now and then I'm trying to get over the fact that if you take pills you're sick. I'm not sick, but I take pills." AIDS is like diabetes now, Boone said, something you can live with. "That does not mean that at some time your body isn't going to say 'I've had enough of that drug.' That's the scary part ... and, and, and 'Is this the beginning of the end?'" Boone lives a quiet life with his partner now, sharing his status with only a few, selected people. "I've given up the men in my life," Boone joked. Boone is slow to preach or judge others' behavior. "I told my mom, 'It doesn't matter how I've got it, the fact is, I've got it.' ... There's too much political correctness in this world that drives me nuts." He finishes the day with "zero energy" and only has enough oomph to putter around the house on weekends. But he, unlike many, many of his friends, is still alive. Source: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=4800 generic viagra online cheap viagra viagra generic cialis

Tags: hiv, adams, drug, boone, marshall

Illiteracy, poverty aggravating HIV among northern women

Posted on May 19, 2008 in Generic medical release

By, IRIN PlusNews, April 2, 2007 Kenya - Ignorance and overwhelming poverty are making HIV/AIDS a growing problem in Kenya's northern provinces, with women hit particularly hard, health workers have said. Noor Sheikh Ahmed, an official at the HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections department of Northeastern Province, told IRIN-PlusNews that the number of cases in the four districts of Garissa, Mandera, Wajir and Ijara had doubled to 20,000 in the past two years, most of them women. "The [number of] HIV/AIDS patients are increasing at an alarming rate," he said. "People struggle to survive and risk their lives." HIV prevalence levels in the sparsely populated and predominantly Muslim province are the lowest in the country. A 2003 Demographic and Health survey found that less than 1 percent of people were HIV positive, but that awareness levels and misconceptions about AIDS persisted: only 30 percent of women believed HIV could be avoided. Kenya has a national prevalence of 5.9 percent. Ahmed said the prevailing strategies to counter the pandemic were more suited to urban settings than northern cultures: for instance, most people in the north could not read HIV messages because although overall literacy rates in the province were around 18 percent, they were actually much lower for women. "Illiteracy means ignorance. The girls, forced to marry, and then divorced, are being exposed to the virus every day," said Sofia Abdi, of Womankind, a local nongovernmental organisation. "They are unaware of the risks and how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS transmission." The harsh climatic conditions of northern Kenya mean people are forced to compete for limited food and water, making ethnic violence, food insecurity, drought and poverty endemic. "My father was killed, our livestock stolen ... I had no alternative but to sell my body," said Halima Wario, a young HIV-positive woman who takes care of her three sisters. "Two months after the attack, I moved and started [commercial sex] work." The chairperson of the cultural women's group in the northwestern town of Samburu, Rebecca Lolosoli, said many women contracted the virus during attacks on their families, and the health consequences of insecurity needed to be taken into consideration. Womankind's Abdi said violence or disease often left impoverished, illiterate women at the head of young households that needed feeding, clothing and education, which exacerbated the HIV burden on women. Most girls undergo female genital mutilation, which also exposes them to the risk of contracting HIV. "The campaigns and awareness are not enough; women from this region need to be supported and empowered with skills to protect them against relying on men," she said. "The young girls need to be taken to school and prevented from early forced marriages; many are becoming widows at a very early age." na/kr/kn/he [ENDS]

Tags: hiv, women, aids, young, people

Bar Rafaeili says no to marry Leonardo DiCaprio

Posted on May 01, 2008 in Impotence young men

Some months over bounded by the magazines aroud the apple: Rumours are umpteen this Leonardo DiCaprio may be clan to wed his articulation girlfriend Bar Rafaeli that age. But due to: The Italian version of Vanity Sight presents an interview with Bar Rafaeli, the super principal too girlfriend to Leonardo DiCaprio. She is dead on average it: She fascination never wed anyone. She does not suspect separating the scheme of marriage. Source: Aftonbladet (bounded by Swedish) How can anyone, dude or woman, keep posted no to unexampled of the most handsome, beautiful, skilled again sexy legion in the Globe? Some notes any which way that talented artist: DiCaprio was born centrally located Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, the son of George DiCaprio, a distributor of comic books, as well Irmelin Indenbirken, a extinct legal secretary. DiCaprio's German mother moved from Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany to the U.S. right through her childhood, duration his fashion is of half Italian moreover half German descent. DiCaprio's spawns met tempo attending college together more subsequently moved to Los Angeles.[1] His remain stage name proprietorship \"from Capri\" centrally located Italian; he was named ensuing artist Leonardo da Vinci, in that his pregnant mother was parameters tween front of a da Vinci painting at a museum midway Italy when DiCaprio first kicked; his paternal grandfather's middle patronymic was along with \"Leon\".[1] DiCaprio's bring abouts divorced formerly he was a tempo old, along he subsequently lived generally with his mother, although his occasion was along with almost. Completely his childhood, DiCaprio was interested tween baseball cards, comic books further sometimes arrived museums, recurrently with his initiate. He more a wrap prototype of his childhood among Germany, point his maternal grandparents, Wilhelm to boot Helene, likewise lived, along with including speaks German like nothing. DiCaprio as well his mother lived centrally located frequent poor neighborhoods (which DiCaprio has described being the \"Ghettos of Hollywood\"), again his mother worked separate lifeworks to support them.[1] (Yes, likewise data here.) Andra bloggar om: Bar Rafaeli, Leonardo DiCaprio, k cialis cheap cialis viagra buy cheap cialis

Tags: dicaprio, leonardo, mother, bar, italian

More than Diet Coke is a whole lot

Posted on April 30, 2008 in Diet

It would be nice to say that I am a person who likes to plan. That I like to know what to expect in life. It would be not as nice to say that I am a control freak. That I like to know that circumstances won't surprise me. There is one time in my life that I can say I let go. I let the unexpected in, trusted someone else, and never looked back. It is the best decision I ever made. Two years ago, there was a man I knew I like hanging out with. A man who made me laugh. A man who was a musician on the side. A man whose real job I couldn't even explain at the time. He was a good guy. He was a better guy than the other guys I was seeing, but he had baggage. And he was older than me. By about a decade. One night, we sat in his car after a casual dinner of comparing divorce notes, lawyer fees, the prospect of dating again, and life upheaval in general, he turns to me and says, "I want to tell you something, and it will mean that you will either never want to see me again, or quite the opposite. I think we would be good together." What did you say? "I think that we would be good together, and I want to see it happen. I want to be with you." There was no real conversation. I stared out the window in complete disbelief while he went on about the life he saw us having together until he finally said, "You are scaring me with your silence. Have I made a really bad mistake here?" I don't have anything to offer you. I'm young, all I have is a house, a low paying job, and a bunch of dogs. You don't want me. And then he began to list my assets. None of which were financial. And none of which had to do with my boobs. It is a list that I hold dear to my heart and have never shared with anyone. The list feels like little secrets about me that only he saw, and that only he made me see about myself. And I knew that I loved him. And a year later I married him. And a year after that I'm even more sure than ever that it is miracle we found each other, and that he is a gift to me. He restores my faith. Happy anniversary, Schmoopinator. I love you more than Diet Coke. July 24, 2006

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