Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucla-cs!seth@PacBell.COM
From: seth@PacBell.COM (Seth Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: Get tested
Message-ID: <28075@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 12 Oct 89 15:17:12 GMT
References: <27888@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <27972@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
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Reply-To: seth@PacBell.COM (Seth Miller)
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Approved: aids@cs.ucla.edu
Archive-number: 1343

In article <27972@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> uvm-gen!jay@banzai.PCC.COM (Jay Schuster) writes:
>Wounded.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (Wounded Bird) writes:
>>YOU CAN BE INFECTED WITH HIV FOR MANY YEARS AND NOT KNOW IT! GET
>>A CONFIDENTIAL TEST. The life you save may be your best friend!
>
>Better yet, don't get tested, and change your behavior as if you
>had tested positive.

I used to believe this myself.  I can't even count the number of arguments
I had with my mother on this point and how many flame wars I participated
in here on the net a advocating this same idea.  I feel very differently
now.

Anyone who is considered "at risk" should go get tested.  With all the
new evidence and new medications that are being tested and released it
is to your own advantage to know your status.  Isn't it better to know your
status early when you may be able to do something to increase the length
and quality of your life than to wait until you get that first (and sometimes
lethal) opportunistic infection.

I watched several of my friends fight against testing only to have their
immune systems so ravaged that they died from their first illness.  If they
had been tested early they might (note: the operative word here is might)
have been able to strengthen their immune systems so that they would have 
survived that first illness and might still be alive today.

Early Intervention.  That's the new buzz word around here.  Get tested and
take control of you life.  Find out what's available.  There are hundreds
of research experiments going on all the time and they are not hard to get
in to (plus you get free blood work and free medicine).  Every day we are
getting closer to having the answer.

Seth