Makan apa?

Sering juga aku pening kepala memikirkan nak makan apa untuk memenuhi rintihan perut ku yang lapar ini. Terlalu banyak pilihan jenis makan di negara kita Malaysia yang berbilang keturunan Melayu, Cina , India, Iban dll (bangsa cuma ada satu jer bangsa Malaysia) lebih mememeningkan kepala.

Perkara yang lebih memeningkan kepala adalah harga makanan yang semakin melampau dan tak masuk akal. Bukan aku ni berkira pasal nak bayar makanan tapi seringkali aku menghadapi dilema harga makanan yang lansung tak berpatutan. sebagai contoh semalam aku terpaksa membayar RM 17 untu nasi putih berlaukan  se ekor ikan kembung goreng dan seketul daging rendang di sebuah "food court" pusat membeli belah di Kuala Lumpur.

Terdetik dalam  hati kecil ku, betapa peniaga makanan tersebut telah mengauh keuntungan berpuluh kali ganda dari kos sebenar. Sekiranya benar maka aku mengharamkan duit yang aku bayar tersebut dan aku berdoa agar perniaga tersebut tidak akan hidup senang di dunia mahupun di akhirat.

sekadar ingin berkongsi rasa......

“I’m HIV-positive: What should I do?”

Posted by Henry Bauer on 2011/09/22

The queries I find most troubling are from people told they are HIV-positive who ask for advice.
The central problem is that HIV/AIDS dogma has so dominated research that no universally applicable answer can be given — there are too many possibilities and too many unknowns. Sometimes “HIV-positive” stems from a health-threatening condition, sometimes from a condition like pregnancy that does not threaten health, and there’s no quick sure way to distinguish between those possibilities.
Because “HIV-positive” sometimes reflects the presence of some sort of threat to health, on average the rate at which people test positive increases as general fitness declines or ill-health increases:

Note that having TB virtually guarantees testing “HIV-positive”, as does drug abuse. That gay men tend to test poz so frequently can be explained at least in part by the intestinal dysbiosis hypothesis, with its ironic corollary that commonsense “hygiene” — douching — may actually be harmful. Some vaccinations (flu, hepatitis, rabies, rubella, tetanus) have been reported to produce a false-positive “HIV” result, as have blood transfusions, dialysis (or kidney failure), organ transplants, and some other medical interventions, as well as a variety of infectious and non-infectious illnesses (Christine Johnson, 1996).
It follows that the best advice for people newly testing “HIV-positive” is to have an unbiased physician do as complete a physical examination as possible, in order to identify any health-threatening condition that might be present. In the earliest days of the AIDS era, Dr. Josef Sonnabend cared for AIDS patients by treating their manifest illnesses and urging them to adopt a generally healthy lifestyle; under such care, even someone who already suffered “full-blown AIDS”, like Michael Callen (Surviving AIDS, HarperCollins 1990), could live for more than a dozen years without resort to antiretroviral drugs. In the modern era, Dr. Juliane Sacher (AIDS as intestinal dysbiosis) and Dr. Claus Köhnlein (Duesberg et al., “The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition”, Journal of Biosciences 28 [2003] 383-412) have attained excellent results by caring for “AIDS” or “HIV-positive” patients in similar fashion, treating the manifest illnesses; patients of Sacher and Köhnlein had far lower mortality than that reported in Germany overall for people treated in the conventional manner with antiretroviral drugs.

How many “HIV-positive” people are actually at some health risk?
If one tests “HIV-positive” in absence of any symptoms of illness, what are the chances that a health risk is actually present?
One answer comes in data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for incidence of “HIV”, diagnoses of “AIDS”, and mortality from “AIDS” or “HIV disease”: something like 50% of “HIV” diagnoses are false-positive in the sense of not reflecting any health-threatening condition; or, one might regard these as what the mainstream calls “long-term non-progressors” or “elite controllers” (What numbers mean: 50% of “HIV-positives” are long-term non-progressors).
Another answer was published last year by Sighem et al. (“Life expectancy of recently diagnosed asymptomatic HIV-infected patients approaches that of uninfected individuals”, AIDS 24 [2010] 1527-35): “The life expectancy of asymptomatic HIV-infected patients who are still treatment-naive and have not experienced a CDC-B or C event at 24 weeks after diagnosis approaches that of non-infected individuals”. “Asymptotic” of course already implies not having suffered a CDC-B or -C event, which are respectively “symptomatic conditions” and “AIDS-indicator conditions”. If there are no signs of any illness, in other words, no abnormal symptoms, then “HIV-positive” in itself is nothing to worry about. One great wickedness of HIV/AIDS dogma is that it instills great fear and inflicts great psychological harm on many people for no good reason; perhaps half of all those who test “HIV-positive” are worried needlessly.
Sighem et al. estimate that an asymptomatic 25-year-old “HIV-positive” individual not taking antiretroviral drugs can expect an additional more than 50 years of life: 52.7 for males, 57.8 for females. The numbers for the general population (the data are for the Netherlands) are 53.1 and 58.1 respectively. The deficit for “HIV-positive” people, 0.4 years in 53.1 and 0.3 years in 58.1, is meaningless given the assumptions and uncertainties in the calculations.
Sighem et al. — and a number of other articles on this and related topics — acknowledge the uncertainties inherent in comparing HIV-positive and HIV-negative people because there may be other characteristics that are not randomly distributed between those two groups; for example, smoking has been reported to be more frequent among “HIV-positive” people, as well as excessive use of alcohol. This sort of uncertainty underscores that differences like those estimated by Sighem et al. (between 52.7 and 53.1, or between 57.8 and 58.1) cannot be taken as significant.
Those of us who do not accept HIV/AIDS dogma will find more serious uncertainties in these articles. We would agree, of course, with the overall conclusion reached by Sighem et al., that an asymptomatic condition of “HIV-positive” predicts no significant shortening of life. But we might then go further, to extrapolate from this that deaths of symptomatic “HIV-positive” people are owing to a variety of causes other than “HIV”. Some of Sighem et al.’s data seems in accord with this. For supposed homosexual and heterosexual transmission respectively, “HIV-positive” people died at rates of 4.6 and 7.2 per 1000, but those purportedly infected through injecting drugs died at 4 or 5 times that rate (32.7/1000); for alcohol abuse the ratio was about 2.5 (16.1 vs. 6.3). One might well argue that drug abuse, or alcohol abuse, were the salient reasons for those deaths, nothing to do with “HIV”.
Sighem et al.’s prognostication of no life-shortening for asymptomatic “HIV-positive” people not treated with antiretroviral drugs seems to be better than that for “HIV-positive” people treated with antiretroviral drugs. Lohse et al. (“Survival of persons with and without HIV infection in Denmark, 1995–2005”, Annals of Internal Medicine 146 [2007] 87-95) estimated that 25-year-olds diagnosed with HIV and undergoing HAART had a median survival of an additional 35 years, which is considerably less than the >50 years for asymptomaticuntreated “HIV-positive” people.
AZT, of course, actively killed people in the years before monotherapy was replaced by HAART cocktails; the immediate drop in mortality when HAART was introduced indicates that AZT monotherapy treatment had been responsible for some 150,000 deaths (HAART saves lives — but doesn’t prolong them!?). AZT (Retrovir, zidovudine) and other NRTIs (Nucleoside-analogue Reverse-TranscriptaseInhibitors) continue to be components of many HAART treatments; that the doses are smaller than with earlier monotherapy doesn’t make them non-toxic, it just means that they kill less rapidly or less surely or cause non-lethal damage. Indeed, the Treatment Guidelines issued by the National Institutes of Health acknowledge the toxicity of HAART in reporting that “In the era of combination antiretroviral therapy, several large observational studies have indicated that the risk of several non-AIDS-defining conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, liver-related events, renal disease, and certain non-AIDS malignancies . . . is greater than the risk for AIDS in persons with CD4 T-cell counts >200 cells/mm3” (p. 13, 1 December 2007 version).
Incidentally, the universal resort to CD4 counts as a measure of the stage of “HIV disease” or “AIDS” is not supported globally by the evidence. Some articles report a correlation between CD4 counts and clinical prognosis, others do not. Some report correlation of CD4 counts with “viral load”, others do not. Sighem et al., for instance, report that CD4 counts are “only associated with minor changes in mortality rates”.

The HIV/AIDS research literature
accords with the Rethinking AIDS position
that “HIV-positive” does not in itself define or detect a state of disease.
“HIV” doesn’t kill.

Antiretroviral drugs, on the other hand, may kill, and they certainly decrease the quality of life in a number of ways — lipodystrophy (“buffalo hump” and other distortions), premature aging, and more.

The best advice for people newly testing “HIV-positive”
is to have an unbiased physician do as complete a physical examination as possible,
in order to identify any health-threatening condition that might be present.

When You tested HIV Positive.

Scream, shout, cry, laugh, hide, run away, feel numb, scared, lonely, relieved. How did you think you would react to a positive result before you actually had the HIV test? Were you right? There are some things that you can only understand when they happen to you.

Reaction to the result is different for everyone. Over time, you'll find a way of dealing with it that suits you, but it might be quite different to the way other people cope with it. Try and think about living - thousands of other people live full and rewarding lives despite HIV, you can do it too.

Your first action as a person living with HIV is make a choice - what to do next. The choices won't stop there; making the right ones to enrich and extend your life might play an increasing part in every new day. It's yourself that giving you the choice to take control, make informed decisions, and get on with your life.

No one ever suggested any of this would be easy. If you need time and space to think your situation through, take it. Whatever you're going through is natural. How you deal with this news is up to you. HIV is threatening your existence, so it's alright to be angry. If you are scared, express your fears. Don't be hard on yourself and don't force yourself to be strong if you don't want to be.

Stress is natural and affects your emotions. It can help you to deal with some situations. However, excessive stress can cause physical symptoms, it can damage your immune system and make you ill. Take stock and find ways of managing the stress in your life. Find ways to relax and recharge your batteries. Listen to your body; if you are tired, rest and you'll be better for it.

HIV can bring anxieties. One way of tackling these are through getting information, by learning about your condition, gaining confidence in it, in yourself and making informed choices for your future.

Receiving a positive diagnosis, even if you were anticipating the result, is often very unsettling. As a result some people just accept the information they are given without really understanding it, or forget to ask questions essential for their peace of mind. However, being well-informed about HIV and related issues can be vital and doctors, support organisations and other people living with HIV can all provide both advise and information.

Ultimately all decisions relating to your life will still be made by you, so if you are unclear about anything, for example the different types of HIV drugs or the side effects of antiretroviral drug treatment, then ASK. Although the issues HIV raises can be surrounded by jargon, being assertive and getting informed can be as useful as any treatment.

Telling close friends and family can provide enormous relief and support, but it can also cause problems. Do people really need to know? Do they need to know immediately? Unfortunately, it's a fact of life that there's still a lot of stigma attached to an HIV diagnosis.

Many people are still afraid of catching HIV through normal social contact. Your background or culture may also play a part in how difficult it might be for you to tell other people that you are HIV positive.

Who you tell and how you tell them will take a bit of thinking through. There can be advantages to talking openly about your status, but it could cause you problems. Be careful who you tell, don't rush off and tell everyone straight away - you might regret telling them later. Do they really have to know? If so, do they have to know now, or can you leave it till later? But sharing the news of your positive status with the right people can strengthen personal relationships and help you feel less isolated.

Probably the first thing that someone you tell will think about is how you got infected. If they're kind enough not to actually ask, be careful that they aren't making assumptions about you. For example, an HIV positive heterosexual man is automatically assumed by many to be gay.

Talk to people you can trust, but try to make sure they will respect your need and right to confidentiality on this issue. Try to make sure whoever you discuss it with is sympathetic to your viewpoint, someone who won't judge you on your lifestyle, sexuality or being HIV positive.

This might be difficult, and though you think you know who your friends are, telling others about this might either confirm or damage personal relationships. If you are gay, some people find that telling others about your status is like "coming out" all over again.

Just as your HIV positive result was possibly a big event to happen in your life, if you're in a relationship the news will also have an impact on your partner. Consider the highly emotional aspects of revealing your status and, if possible, avoid the "heat of the moment" to reveal all. No two relationships are the same, so it's difficult to give advice in this situation.

If you're going to tell, don't delay it for too long. If they are negative, or untested, they might resent you keeping it to yourself, adding unnecessary worry about any risk of infection they might have been in.

Of course, if you discussed the issue before you were tested, talking through the result might be easier.

Telling your ex-partner probably need a lot of time to work this one through. Whether you tell previous partners depends on lots of things, including whether you're still involved with them now, what they know about HIV, whether they're HIV positive themselves (and how do you find out?), and whether they need to know, perhaps because you had unsafe sex with them before you knew your status. How will either of you deal with worrying about who gave whom what?

Disclosure could be when you find out who your friends really are. Carefully deciding who to tell might teach you how to deal with telling others. Common reactions are: shock, pity, disbelief, helplessness, or endless questions. Some people may decide they don't want to know or see you any more. But your real friends will carry on as before, liking and loving you for who you are, supporting you through any problems you have. Remember, being HIV positive does not stop you from being the person you were before you knew your test result.

No two families are the same either. If your immediate family are supportive and loving, your news will bring them anxiety and pain, but could also strengthen your relationship. The alternative is that some members of your family will shun you. If you're gay don't assume your family don't know if you haven't come out to them. They may have chosen to ignore "that part of your life", perhaps inventing their own excuses. Not telling parents could eventually make them even more upset. You know your family better than anyone else does, it might be a gamble, but it's your decision.

Your culture may make it impossible to discuss HIV with your family and friends. There are many organisations and helplines who may be able to put you in touch with other people in a similar situation to you who might be able to offer support or listen to your concerns.

Many women feel that because they or their partner are HIV positive, they can't have children. This is not the case, although there are a number of issues that need to be considered.

If both partners are HIV positive, sexual intercourse without a condom can still be risky. This is because there are different strains of HIV. If a person is re-infected with a different strain, they may be more susceptible to difficulties with antiretroviral treatment.If a woman living with HIV wants to have children with an uninfected partner, her partner may be at risk of HIV infection if they have unprotected sex. To get around this many couples try artificial insemination, so that there is no risk of infection.

When the man is HIV positive, some couples choose to use a technique known as 'sperm washing'. This involves separating the sperm cells from the semen, which is thought to virtually eliminate the risk of HIV transmission. Sperm washing is however expensive, and is unavailable in some parts of the world.

Ensuring her unborn child is uninfected is usually a high priority for an infected pregnant woman. Effective treatment now exists to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother-to-child during pregnancy and birth. Guidelines are also available to help prevent the transmission of HIV through breastfeeding.

It's ok to be HIV positive all you need is positive thinking!

Basic Information about HIV and AIDS

While there have been great strides in the prevention of HIV transmission and care of HIV infection and AIDS since AIDS was first recognized in 1981, many people still have questions about HIV and AIDS. The information below is designed to answer some of these questions based on the best available science.

What are HIV and AIDS?

Electron microscope image of HIV, seen as small spheres on the surface of white blood cells.

HIV is the human immunodeficiencyvirus. It is the virus that can lead toacquired immune deficiencysyndrome, or AIDS. CDC estimates that about 56,000 people in the United States contracted HIV in 2006.

There are two types of HIV, HIV-1 and HIV-2. In the United States, unless otherwise noted, the term “HIV” primarily refers to HIV-1.

Both types of HIV damage a person’s body by destroying specific blood cells, called CD4+ T cells, which are crucial to helping the body fight diseases.

Within a few weeks of being infected with HIV, some people develop flu-like symptoms that last for a week or two, but others have no symptoms at all. People living with HIV may appear and feel healthy for several years. However, even if they feel healthy, HIV is still affecting their bodies. All people with HIV should be seen on a regular basis by a health care provider experienced with treating HIV infection. Many people with HIV, including those who feel healthy, can benefit greatly from current medications used to treat HIV infection. These medications can limit or slow down the destruction of the immune system, improve the health of people living with HIV, and may reduce their ability to transmit HIV. Untreated early HIV infection is also associated with many diseases including cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, liver disease, and cancer. Support services are also available to many people with HIV. These services can help people cope with their diagnosis, reduce risk behavior, and find needed services.

AIDS is the late stage of HIV infection, when a person’s immune system is severely damaged and has difficulty fighting diseases and certain cancers. Before the development of certain medications, people with HIV could progress to AIDS in just a few years. Currently, people can live much longer - even decades - with HIV before they develop AIDS. This is because of “highly active” combinations of medications that were introduced in the mid 1990s.

No one should become complacent about HIV and AIDS. While current medications can dramatically improve the health of people living with HIV and slow progression from HIV infection to AIDS, existing treatments need to be taken daily for the rest of a person’s life, need to be carefully monitored, and come with costs and potential side effects. At this time, there is no cure for HIV infection. Despite major advances in diagnosing and treating HIV infection, in 2007, 35,962 cases of AIDS were diagnosed and 14,110 deaths among people living with HIV were reported in the United States.

Where did HIV come from?

Scientists identified a type of chimpanzee in West Africa as the source of HIV infection in humans. They believe that the chimpanzee version of the immunodeficiency virus (called simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV) most likely was transmitted to humans and mutated into HIV when humans hunted these chimpanzees for meat and came into contact with their infected blood. Over decades, the virus slowly spread across Africa and later into other parts of the world.

HIV-2

In 1986, a second type of HIV, called HIV-2, was isolated from AIDS patients in West Africa. HIV-2 has the same modes of transmission as HIV-1 and is associated with similar opportunistic infections and AIDS. In persons infected with HIV-2, immunodeficiency seems to develop more slowly and to be milder, and those with HIV-2 are comparatively less infectious early in the course of infection. As the disease advances, HIV-2 infectiousness seems to increase; however, compared with HIV-1, the duration of this increased infectiousness is shorter.

HIV-2 infections are predominantly found in Africa. West African nations with a prevalence of HIV-2 of more than 1% in the general population are Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Other West African countries reporting HIV-2 are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, São Tomé, Senegal, and Togo. Angola and Mozambique are other African nations where the prevalence of HIV-2 is more than 1%.

The first case of HIV-2 infection in the United States was diagnosed in 1987. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has worked with state and local health departments to collect demographic, clinical, and laboratory data on persons with HIV-2 infection.

How is HIV spread?

HIV is spread primarily by:

• Not using a condom when having sex with a person who has HIV. All unprotected sex with someone who has HIV contains some risk. However:
  • Unprotected anal sex is riskier than unprotected vaginal sex.
  • Among men who have sex with other men, unprotected receptive anal sex is riskier than unprotected insertive anal sex.
• Having multiple sex partners or the presence of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) can increase the risk of infection during sex. Unprotected oral sex can also be a risk for HIV transmission, but it is a much lower risk than anal or vaginal sex.
• Sharing needles, syringes, rinse water, or other equipment used to prepare illicit drugs for injection.
• Being born to an infected mother—HIV can be passed from mother to child during pregnancy, birth, or breast-feeding.

Less common modes of transmission include:

• Being “stuck” with an HIV-contaminated needle or other sharp object. This risk pertains mainly to healthcare workers.
• Receiving blood transfusions, blood products, or organ/tissue transplants that are contaminated with HIV. This risk is extremely remote due to the rigorous testing of the U.S. blood supply and donated organs/tissue.
• HIV may also be transmitted through unsafe or unsanitary injections or other medical or dental practices. However, the risk is also remote with current safety standards in the U.S.
• Eating food that has been pre-chewed by an HIV-infected person. The contamination occurs when infected blood from a caregiver’s mouth mixes with food while chewing. This appears to be a rare occurrence and has only been documented among infants whose caregiver gave them pre-chewed food.
• Being bitten by a person with HIV. Each of the very small number of cases has included severe trauma with extensive tissue damage and the presence of blood. There is no risk of transmission if the skin is not broken.
• Contact between broken skin, wounds, or mucous membranes and HIV-infected blood or blood-contaminated body fluids. These reports have also been extremely rare.
• There is an extremely remote chance that HIV could be transmitted during “French” or deep, open-mouth kissing with an HIV-infected person if the HIV-infected person’s mouth or gums are bleeding.
• Tattooing or body piercing present a potential risk of HIV transmission, but no cases of HIV transmission from these activities have been documented. Only sterile equipment should be used for tattooing or body piercing.
• There have been a few documented cases in Europe and North Africa where infants have been infected by unsafe injections and then transmitted HIV to their mothers through breastfeeding. There have been no documented cases of this mode of transmission in the U.S.

HIV cannot reproduce outside the human body. It is not spread by:

• Air or water.
• Insects, including mosquitoes. Studies conducted by CDC researchers and others have shown no evidence of HIV transmission from insects.
• Saliva, tears, or sweat. There is no documented case of HIV being transmitted by spitting.
• Casual contact like shaking hands or sharing dishes.
• Closed-mouth or “social” kissing.

How do HIV tests work?

The most commonly used HIV tests detect HIV antibodies – the substances the body creates in response to becoming infected with HIV. There are tests that look for HIV's genetic material or proteins directly; these may also be used to find out if someone has been infected with HIV.

It can take some time for the immune system to produce enough antibodies for the antibody test to detect, and this “window period” between infection with HIV and the ability to detect it with antibody tests can vary from person to person. During this time, HIV viral load and the likelihood of transmitting the virus to sex or needle-sharing partners may be very high. Most people will develop detectable antibodies that can be detected by the most commonly used tests in the United States within 2 to 8 weeks (the average is 25 days) of their infection. Ninety-seven percent (97%) of persons will develop detectable antibodies in the first 3 months. Even so, there is a small chance that some individuals will take longer to develop detectable antibodies. Therefore, a person should consider a follow-up test more than three months after their last potential exposure to HIV. In extremely rare cases, it can take up to 6 months to develop antibodies to HIV.

Conventional HIV tests are sent to a laboratory for testing, and it can take a week or two before the test results are available. There are also rapid HIV tests available that can give results in as little as 20 minutes. A positive HIV test result means that a person may have been infected with HIV. All positive HIV test results, regardless of whether they are from rapid or conventional tests, must be verified by a second “confirmatory” HIV test.

How can HIV be prevented?

Because the most common ways HIV is transmitted is through anal or vaginal sex or sharing drug injection equipment with a person infected with HIV, it is important to take steps to reduce the risks associated with these. They include:

• Know your HIV status. Everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 should be tested for HIV at least once. If you are at increased risk for HIV, you should be tested for HIV at least once a year.
• If you have HIV, you can get medical care, treatment, and supportive services to help you stay healthy and reduce your ability to transmit the virus to others.
• If you are pregnant and find that you have HIV, treatments are available to reduce the chance that your baby will have HIV.
• Abstain from sexual activity or be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner.

• Limit your number of sex partners. The fewer partners you have, the less likely you are to encounter someone who is infected with HIV or another STD.

• Correct and consistent condom use. Latex condoms are highly effective at preventing transmission of HIV and some other sexually transmitted diseases. “Natural” or lambskin condoms do not provide sufficient protection against HIV infection.

• Get tested and treated for STDs and insist that your partners do too.

• Male circumcision has also been shown to reduce the risk of HIV transmission from women to men during vaginal sex.

• Do not inject drugs. If you inject drugs, you should get counseling and treatment to stop or reduce your drug use. If you cannot stop injecting drugs, use clean needles and works when injecting.
  
  
• Obtain medical treatment immediately if you think you were exposed to HIV. Sometimes, HIV medications can prevent infection if they are started quickly. This is called post-exposure prophylaxis.
• Participate in risk reduction programs. Programs exist to help people make healthy decisions, such as negotiating condom use or discussing HIV status. Your health department can refer you to programs in your area.

Maulvi begum sahib: The eunuch who found her calling as a Quran teacher

Maulvi begum sahib: The eunuch who found her calling as a Quran teacher