The “Evil” Planned Parenthood Hooking Kids on Sex

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Jacob Flores

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZix2Nm0fKw

The American Life League, a pro-life group, created a video about the evils of Planned Parenthood. In the video, they compare Planned Parenthood to drug dealers getting children hooked, not on crack, but on sex! In what was supposed to be a serious video, the group instead created an unintentional parody.

While it’s true Planned Parenthood does teach about sex education and offers abortion as “one” of their services, they are not the evil entity the ALL makes them out to be. What they do is take a subject (sex) that for teens is often mysterious and, well, titillating and demystify it. Far too many teens have misinformation about sex learned from other uninformed teens because there are some parents who are uncomfortable broaching the subject. So instead of educating their children, those children are left to educate themselves and each other.

When I was young, I remember hearing stories about getting a girl pregnant by kissing her, or a girl friend (not a girlfriend) telling me that a girl gets pregnant when a boy pees on her. I was, like, gross!

Then there was the shame associated with masturbation and the myths of hairy palms and going blind. I remember constantly checking my hands for stubble and sighing with relief every time my ophthalmologist said I had 20/20 vision.

Planned Parenthood provides teens coming into sexual maturity with the facts about their bodies, sex, and contraceptives so that teens can make informed decisions regarding their own actions.

And while the ALL makes Planned Parenthood out to be evil, the information they lambast Planned Parenthood for providing is available on the Internet. Tech savvy teens have access to all this information–from porn sites to other sites with misinformation. What Planned Parenthood does, though, is organize the information for teens who are going to get it somehow. So why shouldn’t it be from an organization that simply wants to inform, not indoctrinate?

(story via Joemygod)

Tweeting Ignorance: Ron Paul’s Newsletters

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Jacob Flores

Don’t you just love it when someone makes broad generalizations about a community based upon the actions of a few? I had hoped Ron Paul would prove better than that, even though I knew better. Perhaps it’s his recent rise in the polls, with only a few points separating him from Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, but it seems Paul is falling in step with bad mouthing the gay community just like his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls.

Sigh.

(story via Towleroad)

Possible HIV Prevention Breakthrough?

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Jacob Flores

Just four days after World AIDS Day comes news of a potential break through in HIV/AIDS research, as found on Queerty.

Ars Technica reported that:

a team of labs at Caltech and UCLA decided to short-circuit the need for a vaccination, or even antibody-producing immune cells. They created a disarmed adenovirus that contained the genes needed to produce a broadly effective antibody from humans, optimizing the DNA to make sure that the antibody was made in muscle cells, and then secreted into their environment.

The modified virus was then injected into mice that had had their immune systems humanized (the stem cells in their bone marrow were killed off and then repopulated with human cells). The mice were then exposed to levels of HIV many times higher than are normally present during initial infections. Not all antibodies effectively blocked new infections, but at least one did so consistently. The resistance to new HIV infections persisted for the life of the experiments.”

If these experiments conducted on the mice could be successfully carried over into human trials, there is hope that a single inoculation could one day prevent further HIV infections. This means we are steps closer to eradicating the virus for future generations.

I don’t know about you, but I find this hopeful. I would love for my daughter to mature into a world without the threat of infection from HIV.

World AIDS Day

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Jacob Flores

December 1 is World AIDS Day, where as a human race we contemplate how far we have come and where we still need to go in order to eradicate this virus from existence. It’s been 30 years since the first HIV/AIDS diagnosis. In those 30 years, the course of the virus and those affected have changed dramatically.

It used to be that those who became infected with HIV died approximately 9 months after their diagnosis. In the 1980’s, hospitals were filled with many men and women dying from this disease. Special AIDS wards were set up in hospitals throughout the country in order to combat the ever-increasing numbers of patients struck terminally ill with the disease.

That has thankfully changed. Today, most of those AIDS wards in hospitals no longer exist and being HIV positive is no longer a death sentence. With proper medication and medical treatment, HIV positive persons can expect to live a full life, which is quite a departure from the previous 9 month life expectation.

Also gone are the misconceptions that AIDS was communicable through shaking hands, hugging, kissing, using public restrooms, or opening doors. The irrational fear has dissipated with education and with medical knowledge of the virus’ transmission. We know becoming HIV positive can only occur through sharing of bodily fluids by unsafe sex practices, intravenous drug use, and improper sterilization of needles used in medical procedures. Even then, an HIV positive individual who has an undetectable viral load and who takes his/her medication regularly has an almost 0% chance of infecting anyone.

We have all the tools at our disposal to prevent further HIV infections, and with more funding of AIDS research, we can one day reduce future HIV infections to zero.

We have come a long way in 30 years, and we still have a way to go. But as the video below states, we all have the resources to help prevent further infections. We all have a responsibility here–for ourselves and our children.

Hillary Clinton: It’s Time to “Usher in an AIDS Free Generation”

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Jacob Flores

Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the National Institute of Health outlining her commitment to increasing funding for HIV/AIDS research that would “usher in an AIDS free generation,” as reported by ThinkProgress. During her speech, Clinton said that “creating an HIV-free population has never been a government priority until today.”

Personally, I think such a commitment has been a long time coming. While great strides have most definitely been made in treating those individuals living with HIV, greater measure need to be taken to make HIV as eradicated as polio and smallpox.

Apparently, Clinton agrees.

During her speech, she stated that “she envisioned a world in which virtually no children are born with the virus, face far lower risk of becoming infected, and have access to treatments that prevent the development of AIDS and reduce spreading the infection.”

Besides increasing funds for HIV/AIDS research, Clinton is also committed to what she dubbed “combination prevention” designed to decrease future HIV infections.

One of her goals is reducing “mother to child infection. . . to zero” and set the year 2015 as her target for achieving this feat. She also wants to enact “voluntary male circumcision,” which has been proven to “decrease male to female transmission by more than 60 percent.” Lastly, she wants to provide low cost treatment of “anti-retro viral drugs” to those living with the virus. Effectively treating those currently infected reduces transmission to a partner by “96 percent.”

Now, this is what politicians should be doing. They shouldn’t be messing with the private affairs of individuals such as marriage. They should be tackling problems that affect the nation, such as AIDS, education, health care, or employment, and come up with policy that is designed to make the nation stronger, not fracture it with hatred and prejudice.