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From: Holly.12@f718.n202.z1.fidonet.org (Holly 12)
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: I CONFESS MY IGNORANCE...
Message-ID: <39245@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 24 Sep 90 13:35:59 GMT
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Note:	Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening.  Permission granted for
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Archive-number: 2511

I have been told by a friend that his physician said:
        
Most gays who have contracted AIDS were on the receiving side of anal 
intercourse; it is next to impossible to get AIDS from oral sex unless actual 
ejaculation takes place; rimming is not risky as far as contracting AIDS.
        
Is there any truth to that?
        
Also, this same friend told me that the HIV virus (is that redundant... does 
the V stand for virus?) generally shows up within 8 to 16 weeks after 
exposure.
        
Is there any truth to that?
        
And, when discussing the idea that was being circulated somewhile back that 
you could have the virus in your body from sexual contact within the past 12 
years, this friend told me that this idea was based upon frozen blood 
belonging to some famous gay doctor in which the HIV virus had continued to 
live for some 12 years while frozen; in other words, it was a theory based 
upon an irrelevant fact.
        
What is the real scoop on that?
        
Another friend was told that had she been infected prior to her pregnancy that 
the HIV virus would have accelerated its growth and become evident within the 
first trimester.
        
Any truth to that?
        
I think perhaps the largest cause of fear with respect to the general public 
and AIDS is that we have been given so much information which has changed or 
seems to contradict other information.  The other big part of that fear 
though, I am quite certain, has to do with people having to face the reality 
of their own mortality.  My husband died of cancer and it was amazing to see 
how difficult his disease was for people to deal with even without it being 
communicable.  Mortality is a scarey thing for most folks!
        
Thanks for any light you can shed on the topic of AIDS.
        
                                Holly

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