Positive or Not - Think you can tell if someone has HIV?

Play the game and see if you can tell who is Pos or Not.
http://www.posornot.com/?mid=13595764
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Oh, I only got one wrong...

I got them all right.

I hope no one says, it takes one to know one...

A wee bit crass, Wesley.

I was rubbish in the test ... just shows how good a judge of diseases I am.

On a lighter, more hetro-note, I received a similar fake-or-real 'test' about womens' breasts ... I scored 19 out of 20 ... but then again, I AM a lifetime card-carrying member or the StraightPrideBoobLovers Society.

A much loved family member of mine has been diagnosed HIV Positive, so it was really interesting for me to do the test and read the stories behind the faces. It made me feel better to read that it could happen to anyone and how positive all these people are about their lives. Having said that, I flunked the test totally!

Well, they do say the same about gays, that it takes one to know one sort of attitude...

Not sure if it's to do with a good judge of diseases or not, after all, you cannot physically see whether someone is actually HIV+ or not, I just used my gut instinct/intuition, something you can do whatever your sexuality is.

I tend to agree with Wes. I followed my instinct and had only 2 wrong. In my view none of the pics showed any of the classic HIV symptoms. I just looked at them and "got a certain feeling" for a "Yeah" or "Neah".

There are no "classic HIV symptoms" to be seen whilst a person is just HIV+, it's only when the person is in the AIDS part of the infection that it will become more apparent.

Being HIV+ is not an automatic death sentence it was once seen as. Many people don't and haven't even gone on to fall into the AIDS part of the infection. Some people have been HIV+ since the 80's still not needing medication yet others go down within a year or two needing to take medication. The medical profession still have no idea why this is so. Though, still, whether you live or die depends where in the world you live if you know that you have it.

Yes, it could happen quite literally to anyone with an active sex life. Something my aunt said a while back really quite annoyed me. She asked me why it is that only gay people became HIV+! She knows dam well that isn't so as this conversation had come up before in the past, she'd been having an affair with a married man and clearly she wasn't the first. Many people seem to assume that it wont happen to them regardless of their sexual adventures. Some don't even care, quite happy for the health services to pay thousands for the drugs it costs to keep them alive when the money could be better spent. I saw a programme on TV a while back about young gay guys actually wanting to catch it, somehow not being happy until they got it feeling a sense of relief once they had achieved it!

I pose the question to anyone with an active sex life, do you really know that you aren't infected... how do you know if you haven't been tested? You may think you are in a monogamous relationship but once your partner leaves your company you really have no idea what that person is getting up to, it only takes a few minutes... sometimes that excitement is too much to ignore, whether you are paying for it or not.

I have friends in the UK who I have tried to convince to get tested, it's not the big deal it once was, stigma and all, but they refuse. May be it will dampen their exciting sex lives, not caring who they may have passed it on to... but what's worse. Having HIV, not knowing, then when you start to get ill, your CD4 count becoming so low (A normal CD4 count in a man without HIV infection will be approximately 500 to 1000 cells per cubic millimetre of blood, and 500 to 1500 in women) with your viral load getting so high, it gets so bad that it becomes untreatable so you die a horrible death OR... having HIV, getting tested and knowing, keeping an eye on the infection, giving the regular blood tests, until at such time you need to take medication and carrying on your life as best as normal, careful not to let anyone else catch it from you not wanting that responsibility.

It’s not all doom and gloom, but people are still dying from HIV/AIDS even in the western world despite the advances in treatments. One of my friends here asked me to go with her to hospital to support her while she saw her friend who was very ill. He had HIV/AIDS but there were other complications too, he had TB as well as a few other complaints but he’d left it far too late for treatment. He asked to see me as I was waiting outside the room out of respect, I didn’t know him. I shook his hand and wished him the best. He was only 47 years old but looked like he was 87. My friend later told me he had asked her if she thought he would get better asking me what I would have said. I told her... "As long as you’re alive, there’s always hope..." But there was little they could do for him and he died the following week. He'd left it far too late for treatment.
Now, why on earth would anyone want to go through that unnecessarily...

You are right Wes. I wrote too fast. I meant "classic AIDS symptoms" as already described in the early 80's, both in France and in the US.

Maybe HIV/AIDS is not all gloom and doom in some parts of the industrialised world, due to the disponibility of new drugs and cocktails of drugs which the people over here can afford. In the third world however, millions continue to die from the disease because the available drugs are not sufficient and because some retarded heads of state advocate garlic against AIDS and prohibit the use of condoms!

Yes, it is amazing some of the supposed cures/preventative measures that idiot leaders have come up with.

In Thailand, on a brighter note...
It costs £38.50 a week for the Anti-Retro Viral Drugs to keep an HIV+ child healthy.
http://www.pattayaorphanage.org.uk/whatwedo/hivaids.cfm
In the western world it's as high as £700 per month.

It's interesting to note that...
The majority of Thailand’s HIV infections (around 80%) occur through heterosexual sex.
http://www.avert.org/aidsthai.htm
I think this is the case in other countries too, that the majority of new cases are through heterosexual contact.

Initially, branded drugs were mostly used, but an increase in the production of cheap generic drugs within Thailand has allowed the government to obtain the medicines at much lower prices.

In November 2006, the newly installed Thai government – which had come to power following a military coup two months earlier – decided to issue a compulsory license for the ARV efavirenz. The patent owner, Merck, was already selling this drug for a non-profit price of 1,400 baht (£22) per month, but by producing generic versions of the drug, the government could offer it to patients for half of this price. The government followed this by announcing in February 2007 that it would also break the patent on the drug Kaletra, and that more compulsory licenses would follow.

Most developing countries have hesitated to break patents on AIDS drugs, for fear of trade repercussions, so the Thai government’s decision was a brave move, and has been widely applauded by activists and AIDS organisations.

Precisely and that's why the test is so difficult ... there are many ticking time-bombs out there who are unnoticeable and, to a large extent, themselves unaware.

I was chatting to a gay friend recently who told me that there are a HUGE amount of guys out there continuing to perform unsafe sex. Their reason? With the advances in HIV medicines they believe that if they do catch HIV they can have it controlled by medication. They seem unaware that that doesn't essentially reduce the risks of actually contracting full-blown AIDS! Personally speaking, I never saw much allure in playing Russian Roulette.

Yes, but it's not just guys, girls play Russian roulette too...

No medication will be given until either the patient falls into the AIDS part of the infection or the CD4 count falls below 300. Some people have turned up at the hospital incredibly with a zero CD4 count, the doctors amazed that the person had no visble opportunist diseases/infections. I mean if you were happily married living a normal happily married life you'd have no concerns about catching it would you... my partner told me that his cousin in Thailand caught it from her husband who worked away, he frequently visited prostitutes. He later died and then she discovered that she had it, she became very ill and gave up but then she was pursuaded to go to the doctors as there were new pills coming out. She went through them one by one until they found one that was suitable for her. She now lives... enjoys her life and has found a new man, hopes to get married and even have children.

I'm glad to hear that Wesley.

I think the 'problem' is, for people from the British Isles at least, there was an advertising campaign 20+ years back with tombstones, etc. sending out the chilling message that by the year 2000 EVERY family in Britain would be affected by AIDS.

Well, 20 + years on, I can only think of one solitary person I've ever met (briefly at a friend's party in Scotland) that succumbed to the disease. A friend of a friend who came from London that was most obviously HEAVILY into the London gay scene - a leather-clad Freddy Mercury clone. Whether he contracted the disease prior to it's 'discovery' is something I can't answer.

I have been tested on a 6 monthly basis, despite my tripanophobia, and so far I've got the all clear on all the nasty, virulent diseases going about.