Social and legal issues

Social and legal issues features

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  Finances for the over-50s

  Guest writer Emma Lunn investigates some of the financial options for people approaching retirement age....

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  What kind of prevention do gay men need?

  A number of presentations at the 19th International AIDS Conference explored the 'hyperepidemic' of HIV amongst men who have sex with men, and especially black MSM. A paper...

  From:  News

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  Rest assured – life insurance for people with HIV

  Relatively few people with HIV in the UK take out life insurance, but is that actually because it isn’t available to them? Gus Cairns investigates. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Getting tough on criminalisation

  “Nothing short of barbaric.” This was the comment of a BBC presenter, confronted with the number and sheer arbitrary injustice of criminal convictions of people accused of transmitting...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Barriers to care: immigration removal centres and HIV

  Evidence has shown that a series of failings in immigration removal centres (IRCs) has compromised the continuity of care for people with HIV. Guest writer Daniel Lombard investigates. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Is there life after death for HIV social care?

  HIV specialist social care is in danger of vanishing altogether as a facet of social work in England. Despite improvements in health, changes in the make-up and...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  What's happening to benefits?

  At least 40% of people with HIV are jobless,1,2 especially those who are long-term diagnosed. Most of them will be on Incapacity Benefit or other state-provided financial assistance...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  The beginning of change: the 2010 CHIVA summer camp

  Following on from our issue looking at young people, in October, guest writer Bakita Kasadha talks to the organisers and participants in the UK’s summer camp for teenagers...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  The whether forecast: HIV services in the cutback era

  Some HIV experts are wondering not what our services will look like in the future but in some areas, whether there will be any HIV-specific services at all....

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Staying safe inside: HIV and hepatitis C health care in prison

  Policies on safer sex and needle exchange in UK prisons seem to have stalled. With a high and increasing prevalence of hepatitis C in our jails, and...

  From:  HIV treatment update

Social and legal issues in your own words

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  Surviving isolation and abuse

  My official diagnosis was in 1989. I then took another test in 1990 in the UK to confirm the legitimacy of it. At first, I...

  From: In your own words

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  The sex police

  I met Amy through a friend – a friend who knew my HIV status. We got on really well and she asked if I wanted...

  From: In your own words

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  Having a baby

  I want my experiences to give hope to other people – things do not have to end when you find out that you have HIV. In...

  From: In your own words

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  Change of direction

  I moved to Manchester with my partner to start a course in nursing with the intention of becoming a midwife. Initially everything was peachy. But...

  From: In your own words

Social and legal issues news from aidsmap

• Up to a third of HIV infections in European gay men may have come from another country

  A study (Frentz) that looked at genetic similarities in the HIV from recently diagnosed people in 24 European countries found that among ‘clusters’ of closely related viruses (which indicate networks of transmission), a quarter of people who were ...

  10 May 2013 | Gus Cairns

• Blackmail, violence and stigma restrict access to sexual health services for gay men, Global Health and Rights Study reports

  The Global Forum for MSM and HIV has released an analysis of its 2012 Global Men’s Health and Rights Study (GMHRS) concentrating on young men under 30 who have sex with men (MSM), complementing the full report which came out ...

  01 May 2013 | Gus Cairns

• Marriage is a risk factor for HIV infection in Malawi

  Marriages in Malawi are characterised by such stark gender inequalities that marriage itself is a risk factor for HIV infection in women, according to qualitative research published last month in Global Public Health. Women with HIV who took part ...

  08 April 2013 | Roger Pebody

• People doing well on HIV therapy "should be eligible" for life insurance cover

  The long-term effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy means that many HIV-positive people should be eligible for affordable life insurance, European investigators write in the online edition of AIDS. Even though HIV-positive people doing well on treatment had a higher mortality risk compared ...

  22 March 2013 | Michael Carter

• UK healthcare workers need better information and guidance on HIV criminalisation

  Support services for people living with HIV would benefit from better information and support around prosecutions for the sexual transmission of HIV, according to a report released yesterday by researchers from Sigma Research and Birkbeck College. The study explored ...

  07 March 2013 | Roger Pebody

• Young gay men with HIV in the UK worry about disclosure, transmission and prosecution – older ones about confidence and sex

  A large majority of gay men in the UK with HIV describe having one or more problems with sex, an analysis of a survey originally published in 2009 reveals. Amongst other problems, the analysis of the 2009 What do you ...

  07 November 2012 | Gus Cairns

• Viral load will be no defence against prosecution for HIV exposure or transmission in Norway

  HIV campaigners reacted with dismay today to the issuing of a report by a Norwegian Commission on HIV and the Law which, while making one significant concession in the shape of allowing condom use as a defence, in some other ...

  20 October 2012 | Gus Cairns

• Huge differences in HIV mortality rates in US according to race, social and economic status

  New US research has revealed enormous differences in HIV mortality rates between patients according to their race and social and economic status. Published in the online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study showed that mortality rates ...

  19 October 2012 | Michael Carter

• Religious beliefs don't deter HIV testing or use of antiretrovirals among Africans in London

  Religious beliefs do not prevent black Africans living in London from accessing HIV testing or starting antiretroviral therapy, according to a study published in HIV Medicine. The research involved 246 patients who were diagnosed with HIV between 2004 and 2006. ...

  15 August 2012 | Michael Carter

• What kind of prevention do gay men need?

  A number of presentations at the 19th International AIDS Conference explored the 'hyperepidemic' of HIV amongst men who have sex with men, and especially black MSM. A paper presented by Gregorio Millet showed that, at least in the USA, ...

  06 August 2012 | Gus Cairns

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Social and legal issues news selected from other sources

• HIV/AIDS in Yemen: Fighting discrimination

  In its first HIV/AIDS-specific project in an Arab country Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is working in Sana’a to help reduce the stigma faced by people living with HIV and improve their access to quality healthcare.

  13 June 2013 | Medecins Sans Frontieres

• Enough With the HIV Treatment Cascade Research, Let's Do Something About It Already

  "Funding allocation -- be it governmental or private -- largely does not address stigma, shame and denial...the community is wandering around in ignorance about the availability of treatment and the ability to live a normal life with HIV infection." CDC scientist argues for better linkage to care and campaigns to improve HIV literacy.

  12 June 2013 | The Body Pro

• AIDS laws in Asia and the Pacific are failing to protect those most vulnerable

  Legal protections are unevenly enforced and human rights violations persist for people living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific. According to a new report released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), weak anti-discrimination laws affect the daily lives of those living with HIV by creating barriers to access to health care, prevention and treatment, and employment and education opportunities. Most people who experience rights abuses do not attempt to seek redress through legal means, according to the report.

  30 May 2013 | United Nations Development Programme

• Lawyer: NY man at center of HIV scare not positive

  Nushawn Williams, a New York drug dealer imprisoned amid accusations he infected 13 young women with HIV in the 1990s, does not have the virus that causes AIDS, according to his attorney, who said he arranged for a new blood test as part of efforts to get him released from prison. But state officials have questioned the validity of the testing procedure used.

  24 May 2013 | Wall Street Journal

• Honouring Shivananda Duncan George Khan OBE

  APCOM, one on the many organisations he helped to found, honours pioneering HIV and MSM activist Shivananda Khan, who died on 20 May.

  21 May 2013 | APCOM (Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health)

• New Report on HIV/AIDS & Homelessness in New York

  State lawmakers could prevent homelessness for thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS by passing an affordable housing bill that would also save taxpayer’s money, according to a new report released on May 17th, 2013 by VOCAL-NY and the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center. The report includes new data about the causes of homelessness in New York City’s shelter system for people with HIV/AIDS and documents negative impacts that homelessness has on their health.

  20 May 2013 | Vocal New York

• Bahrainis with incurable illness will need court nod to wed

  Bahrain citizens suffering from a hereditary or incurable disease – such as sickle cell anaemia, HIV, and hepatitis – will need to get permission from the courts to get married under a new draft bill currently being considered by the government, it has been reported.

  16 May 2013 | Arabian Business News

• The World's Best Drug Laws

  What are the best and worst countries to live in if you're a drug user? What is a really good set of drug laws, anyway? One man's view: as provocative and contentious as you'd expect.

  03 May 2013 | The Fix

• Doctors warn of rising xenophobia in Europe's healthcare systems

  Austerity measures adopted in Europe in response to the public debt crisis have a devastating impact on healthcare services, resulting in rising xenophobia in countries like Greece and Spain, the humanitarian group Doctors of the World said Tuesday (9 April). Rising unemployment and poverty across Europe have generated extreme-right statements stigmatising migrants,...

  11 April 2013 | EurActiv

• Swiss Federal Supreme Court rules that criminal HIV exposure or transmission is no longer necessarily a serious assault

  The Swiss Federal Supreme Court has ruled that HIV infection may no longer be automatically considered a serious assault, due to improved outcomes in life-expectancy on antiretroviral therapy.

  05 April 2013 | HIV Justice Network

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