LICENTIA COGITATIONIS

STI Prevention in the Era of Biomedical HIV Intervention       Part I   Incident chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis have risen sharply among men in the United States and other industrialized countries, with syphilis disproportionately high among MSM. 1 This study investigates the relationship between biomedical HIV interventions and recent increases in STI incidence in AIDS-affected communities across the U.S. As Truvada (and now, Descovy) and concepts like U=U (undetectable equals untrasmittable) move across continents and into local formularies, traditional methods of HIV prevention are being destabilized. For the past 40 years, under the guidance of CDC and WHO, public health departments have focused primarily on preventing HIV by promoting abstinence, behavior change, and condoms (ABCs). However, the biomedical paradigm is shifting global strategies to address this disease. Anti-retroviral drugs can reduce the infectiousness of people living with HIV by abo...

Pedigree Analysis I discovered several diseases and traits for which I have a high risk of inheritance, namely chronic lung disease and lung cancer associated with smoking tobacco, hypertension and high cholesterol, an addictive disorder. Each of these illnesses appears more than once in my family pedigree, posing a significant threat to my own health history. Luckily, although I may be predisposed to these adverse health outcomes, their manifestation depends on several behavioral and environmental conditions that are entirely avoidable. The family history pedigree displayed my vulnerabilities and shed light on the importance of cultivating preventive strategies to ameliorate risks and reduce the chances of succumbing to diseases and heritable traits. At age 30, I am fully responsible and engaged in my own self-care, treatment, and prevention. However, when I was a child, the risk behaviors, social psychologic stressors, and environmental circumstances that made up my hea...