Christopher Haliskoe, Online Managing Editor
Christopher HowellAIDS/HIV1-1-1-1 HIV infection is at an all-time high, Dr. William Schwartzman explained Oct. 24 to an audience of students and non-students at a seminar entitled “HIV/AIDS: Progress and Challenges.”Although people with HIV/AIDS can now live with the disease, Schwartzman said infection rates continue to rise, especially in third world countries like those of sub-Saharan Africa.Armed with a PowerPoint presentation and an M.D.’s vocabulary, Schwartzman, Associate Clinical Professor at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, chronicled the history of the STD, its methods of infection, its symptoms, mortality rate, treatments and hope for the future. “If any plague has characterized the 20th and 21st centuries and left its mark,” he said, “it’s HIV.” Schwartzman started with the history of HIV and AIDS. He spoke of how HIV was a primate affliction, originally known as Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, passed to humans through contact of meat and blood of primates killed for food. It mutated over time and became Human Immunodeficiency Virus. He explained that AIDS was once considered the “gay plague” because the first cases were reported in several homosexual men living in Los Angeles. He made it clear, however, that AIDS does not discriminate, citing examples of how it spread to all races and sexual orientations. During the seminar, Schwartzman mentioned that anal sex more readily transfers AIDS between sexual partners. Anal sex, he said, is a much more traumatic form of sex, tearing up soft tissues and rupturing blood vessels. Citing two examples, Schwartzman showed how AIDS destroys families and rips apart communities. One person, a 48 year old father of three from Seattle, was diagnosed in the ’80s. Word spread of his infection, and his whole family was alienated. The children took up destructive habits, and after his death the family moved because the stigma of AIDS was too much. He went on to elaborate on how HIV infects T Cells, beginning a chain reaction that devastates the body’s ability to fight disease. Even though numerous AIDS treatments have been experimented with, the disease has evolved around all but a few drugs. He ended by talking about the treatments that have worked and showing how AIDS deaths have leveled off, but the number of people being infected continues to rise. AIDS-related deaths continue to cause around 40 deaths per 100,000 people per year, above any other cause of death. “Infectious disease is, in essence, a race between human understanding and science,” he said. “It was a very good presentation,” said Professor Bernardine Pregerson, professor of life sciences. “You never know what approach each speaker will take and I liked his method.” Pregerson, who teaches microbiology, began studying AIDS in the early ’80s when the first cases were reported. She began inviting professionals in the field of medicine to speak at Pierce about HIV and AIDS about five years ago. Her Microbiology 20 class was present at the seminar. She and her students, however, did think the seminar was a little too professional. “As much as I liked the material, it could have been a little simpler,” she said. “It was a good experience, but some of it went over my head,” said Yolanda Chumpictaz, one of Pregerson’s students. “It was a little hard to understand how HIV infects T Cells.” Many people believe unsafe anal sex is a safe practice due to actors on sites like twinkpornvideos.xxx not using condoms and there is no cause for alarm over HIV or AIDS, the only reason some actors perform anal sex without protection is due to the fact adult actors are screened for STD’s monthly, and even sometimes more often.
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