pedro_md Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 "The two most common situations where there is a significant risk of HIV transmission are: (1) unprotected sexual intercourse (anal or vaginal); or (2) sharing injecting equipment (needles and syringes) that contains HIV-infected blood. Practically speaking, this means that people living with HIV must disclose their HIV status before having unprotected intercourse (vaginal or anal) and before sharing injecting equipment (needles and syringes) that contains HIV-infected blood. In the Cuerrier case, the Supreme Court suggested that careful use of a condom may reduce the risk of HIV transmission to the point where the risk of serious bodily harm is not significant. And as a result, an HIV-positive person who properly uses a condom might not have a legal duty to disclose his or her HIV status before engaging in sexual intercourse. But this was only a suggestion by the Supreme Court, and it not the law." Is it just me or is there something significantly wrong with our judicial system?? Only serious risk?! low/moderate risk are not sufficient to require disclosure? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rock* Posted February 22, 2008 Report Share Posted February 22, 2008 To add to this in case anyone was wondering: The risk of contracting HIV from unprotected receptive vaginal intercourse is 0.1-0.2% insertive vaginal intercourse is 0.03-0.14%. Health Canada predicts an HIV prevalence rate of about 46000-66000 persons in Canada in 2002 Using protection will undoubtedly drop the risk by a few orders of magnitude so in effect, the possibility of first finding an HIV infected individual and then contracting the virus during unprotected sex is fairly low so I can see how the supreme court arrived at their suggestion. On the other hand it's also kind of appalling that the courts would suggest that a healthy person need not know about a threat to his/her life due to a cold statistical calculation that predicts their chance of dying as a low probability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satsuma Posted February 23, 2008 Report Share Posted February 23, 2008 Well right now anyway HIV is reportable by law...so if you don`t communicate with your sexual partners then the department of health will do it for you...of course you have to have shared with them your list of partners. So you would still have to share this info with your partner as it stands right now. A case to share...the stats posted make it seem rather unlikely that someone would get HIV with vag intercourse. So I thought I would post the story of a couple where the female was HIV + and the male HIV - and were wanting to get pregnant. The MD advised the "turkey baster" method...however u spell that. The couple decided the risk was minimal and went ahead without protection. Well, the pregnancy was accomplished and the male partner contracted HIV. Sharing this case to illustrate that the risk is real even though the numbers seem small. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satsuma Posted February 26, 2008 Report Share Posted February 26, 2008 Personally, I would never EVER expose my husband to any risk of HIV if it was under my control... To me it would be too much like having a small chance of sentencing him to long term illness, if not death, and even a tiny risk is unacceptable. There are other methods of having children and I'd be terrified that my kid would be HIV+ as well. There's a topic for another thread! Vertical HIV transmission can be pretty high without treatment...over 25% However, with ARVs the risk goes down to 8% and combined with elective cesarean and no breatfeeding, it seems the risk is further reduced to around 2% transmission (some studies suggest it could be lower). HIV pregancies are followed (should be followed) closely by someone who specialises in this. The idea is to follow viral loads closely and get them down and keep them down. Ideally, the mom-to-be is seen prenatally for counselling and monitoring of viral loads and starting treatment etc. Not an expert in this area so can't discuss the details. Certainly it seems we use alot of ressources screening for diseases/disorders that occur at lower frequencies in order to prevent morbidity/mortality. I don`t know that the medical community encourages HIV positive women to get pregnant....but certainly HIV postitive women are gonna get pregnant with or without the support of the medical community. So if doctors stay open and encourage their pts to be followed by specialists and adhere to their treatment regimens then at least the risk can be reduced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyler582 Posted March 3, 2008 Report Share Posted March 3, 2008 Older article from the CMAJ website in their ethics series. References a case where a man didn't wanna tell his wife about the AIDs. http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/156/4/521 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
its_a_conspiracy Posted March 3, 2008 Report Share Posted March 3, 2008 There are other methods of having children and I'd be terrified that my kid would be HIV+ as well. Yes! Whoot whoot to surrogacy and test tube kids! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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