Aid a Friend: Spread the Message

Although National Black HIV/AIDs Awareness Day has passed, your consciousness shouldn’t. According to the CDC, African-Americans are the leading cause of all HIV/AIDs cases in the United States.

As of 2006, African-American men counted six times higher than white men for cases of new HIV infection, and African-American women counted nearly a whopping 15 times higher than white females.

Furthermore, from 2005-2008, the rate of HIV diagnoses rose from 68/100,000 to 74/100,000 making this number the largest increase of infection in a given ethnicity/race.

Seriously, what’s the buzz?

It is my belief that socioeconomic factors affect African-Americans harsher than other races, which contribute to high numbers. In other words: Poverty → poor housing → lack of healthcare → lack of education on prevention → not using protection or sharing of needles during drug use → infection spreads → fear (people will not seek help because they are afraid of others finding out) → death → HIGHER NUMBERS.

So what can we do? It’s simple: spread the message by educating yourself and others. 

Ways HIV is spread

*Sexual Intercourse

*Anal sex

*Oral Sex

*Injected drug use

*Blood transfusion

*Mother-to-child breast milk

Ways to prevent

*Abstinence: 100% proof against catching HIV/AIDs.

*Be in a monogamous relationship: Communicate with your partner and be honest about your sexual history. It can save your life and his/hers.

*Safe sex is unlike the rest: Any condom with spermicide for anal, vaginal or oral penetration. Lesbians may wish to use a dental dam, a thin latex square, for oral sex.

*If you work in healthcare: I’m pretty sure they drill this but you are at risk as well. Wearing medical latex or non-latex gloves when you come into contact with a patient’s urine, blood, or semen, or feces can protect you.

*Do not share needles: Ever!

*Stop with the stereotypes: HIV/AIDs doesn’t discriminate and neither should you.

*GET TESTED! If you are sexually active, you need to check your status, and more than once in a year.

Urstrulee,

KareemaBee

Spread Love. Live life. Be Inspired.

Source: CDC, Pic: Ithaca.edu

*I am not a physican or health professional. This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. By reading this you understand & you release elleELLEeye from any warranty or liability for your use of this information. We are a blog created to spread love, live life and inspire readers to help themselves and others.

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eyeSee Hope for Us

In the wake of World AIDS Month there has been a medical breakthrough in HIV medicine. According to the huffingtonpost.com, doctors believe Timothy Ray-Brown, an HIV positive male known as the "Berlin patient", has been cured of HIV due to a stem cell transplant he received in 2007.

If this is true, genetically engineering stem cells will hopefully be the cure for AIDS. It has also been recently reported that HIV negative persons taking anti-retro virals given to HIV patients can reduce their risk of contracting the virus by 73%.

All of these new found medical developments has given hope to the 33 million people worldwide living with the virus and their loved ones.

Stay True,
Riss
Spread Love. Live life. Be Inspired.

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Listen to Your "Intuition"

Young Flame is no stranger to elleELLEeye, but if you don't know who he is let us remind you. Young Flame is a rapper straight out of the Bronx. He's lyrical and a great artist who even performed at our first event, The Sweet Sound of Hip-Hop. Today he is dropping his new single, "Intuition", which is more of a serious track, for the sake of sending an important message. We should always strive to spread awareness on HIV/AIDS, which is a prominent issue going on in the African-American, Hip-Hop community. This needed to be brought to the light and Young Flame does just that with this song, so let's get right into it. Happy listening!

Download NOW

The song “Intuition” is so important to the young African American community because most rap music glorifies going out to the club, drinking and meeting beautiful girls to ultimately take home and have sex with. No one talks about the dangers of living this lifestyle. According to The Department of Health, in New York City alone, over 3,000 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2008. As of 2008, in New York City there were over 105,000 people currently living with HIV and during 2008, almost 2,000 people died from the virus in New York City. The number of African Americans between the ages of 20-29 living in New York City that have been newly diagnosed with HIV has increased from about 400 in 2007 to over 500 in 2008.

In an interview, Young Flame stated that, “One form of contraception that people don’t speak about is Communication. If you listen to the song, you will understand that if they had only communicated in the beginning, it would have never ended how it did.” Had the young woman only followed her intuition when she first started feeling like her boyfriend was being dishonest with her, spoke to him about it and gotten tested, she would have never went out and had sex with another man who infected her with the HIV that she then passed onto her child and boyfriend who then passed it onto the other female he met in the club who can then pass it onto someone else. It becomes a continuous cycle (Young Flame "Intuition" press release).

Having sex doesn't make you cool. Here are some ways to protect yourself:

-Get yourself tested
-Practice safe sex (Birth control doesn't protect you from STDs)
-Practice celibacy
-Practice abstinence
♥ t i f f a n y
Spread Love. Live life. Be Inspired.
Proud supporter of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

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