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| Ozzy Ramos lost all his family for the VIH. In this June 27, National Day of the test of the VIH, it knows his notable history |
| A life test |
For Felipe Lagos
Washington Hispanic
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| On June 27 there is celebrated a new National day of the test of the AIDS. More information in hivtest.org. |
Ozzy Ramos has been a witness in proper meat of the history of the VIH from the first days of the infection, when gay was cataloguing it like a “epidemic” in the eighties, up to the actuality.
Entremedio, lost his lady, his daughter and his son for the virus. Although he was not contagious, he says that “only for work and divine grace I am here today”.
Ramos announced his history in the event that the Metropolitan Coalition of VIH/Sida, did to promote the National Day of the Test of the VIH, which is celebrated on June 27.
“ My wife was diagnosed in 1985. In this epoch I was 19 years old. We knew of his infection because my daughter had symptoms of AIDS, and my son also was notified that had VIH. In this epoch gay was speaking to herself about the virus like a “epidemic”, and they were between the first children and women who entered investigation. In this epoch he was living in North Carolina and was a marine. The marines did not know very well how to fight with the situation initially, what it has improved with the time”, he narrates Branches.
“ In this epoch it was very young and I happened the following 15 years fighting against something that most of the veinteañeros do not fight. I had the option to flee of the whole situation also, but I did not do it, although it was scared because he did not know if I was going to become infected also. I educated myself across the organizations that were giving education, and while they were delivering more information to me, more comfortable I felt in spite of taking care of my family”, he reports.
“ This way, my family, one after one were falling down. My daughter died in 1986, my lady in 1992 and my son in 1999. During this time I became an activist, took part in the coalition ACTUP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power in English), I was part of many demonstrations, and also I was the first instructor on VIH/Sida for the marines”, he says Branches.
After some years in which, he admits, avoided to face the topic, it had an Epiphany. It had to open a house that was serving to children and young people who were living with the virus. The experience led it, in 2006, to creating HOME (House of Miracles and Hugs in English) in Fredericksburg, It Goes. “HOME is a homage to the family with which I formed a hearth, and it is my way of keeping them alive. Although I happened many years trying to suppress the feeling, it was something that had to do. I am tired of so many people saw to die for an illness completely prevenible”.
Since Ramos has a perspective on the virus that it includes from his beginning until today, he was consulted what is the principal problem that exists at present. His answer surprises. “I believe that unfortunately there are two problems. One, still lacking education and we have to do more with the mass media, once that happens the numbers will go down. Other is that, to the credit many other medicines to treat the illness, that has provoked that we relax in prevention, and some adolescents believe that if they are contagious they are going to have a normal life because there are medicines and are a manageable illness. I believe that it is necessary to change this mentality”.
This Sunday, the 28th, HOME will carry out a career for a positive cause in Fredericksburg, where they hope to obtain funds. The career begins at 8 a.m. More information in www.iwannagohome.org.
Maynor Thong, cochairman of MLAC:
“ East is a serious problem”
“ In the metropolitan area the VIH it is a serious problem. The people do not know what it is spending so serious what is not even, although they admit that the problem exists. That's why we want to educate the people to prepare and to create conscience in the Latin community. To convince the people that the problem is more serious than they think. For it, we are employed with several organizations at the area. We believe that it is the best form, the work as a whole to do educational chats, to come more to the people in different forms, examinations of VIH/Sida, and more that everything to educate. Our message this June 27 is that there is done the test, which is educated, which they understand that the situation is serious. It is necessary to leave the taboo, this can spend him to anyone and it is necessary to lose the fear”.
Augusto Paredes, cochairman of MLAC:
“ Latin Americans are being affected”
“ The Latin Metropolitan Coalition of the AIDS assembles to a group of organizations and individuals and takes the message to the community that the VIH continues here, in addition to educating on prevention. Historically the VIH has affected men who have sex with men and transgénero Latin Americans, and continues this tendency, but lately we see that the infection is infecting women whose husbands are paying for having sex without protection with sexual workers, infecting his wives. For the same, this June 27 estresamos the importance of doing the test of the VIH to him. The virus can be latent in someone for eight years without being evident, and during this time it is possible to infect many persons, and his body is going to be damaging also”.
| There is no certainty that they work, he says a study |
| Effectiveness of homeopathic remedies in doubt |
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| The homeopathy was invented by the German doctor Samuel Hahnemann. Photo AP. |
For Jeff Donn
ap
The homeopathic remedies, which use highly diluted drugs done by means of natural ingredients, are considered to be by many doctors ineffective remedies and mainly inoffensive, because they contain minuscule drugs quantities.
But a study of the AP of the reports of the Administration of Drugs and Food (FDA, according to his acronym in English) on the reactions that they cause revealed that more than 800 ingredients used in the homeopathic remedies can have been involved in different problems of health last year, from vomiting up to attempts of suicide.
The study verified that generally the active homeopathic ingredients are diluted to such a point that they represent one millionth part of the compound or less, but there are cases in which bigger concentrations appear.
Also, although the FDA has strict limits for the use of alcohol in the medicines, especially in the remedies for children, those extreme do not include the homeopathic remedies. There are syrups that have more than 10 % of alcohol, when the National Academy of Pediatricians recommends not to overcome 5 %.
It is necessary to notice that the center of alternative medicines of the National Institute of Health suspended his studies of homeopathic remedies "because there are no elements that they indicate that they serve", according to the director of the center, Josephine Briggs.
The homeopathic remedies include at least 20 ingredients that need recipe in the conventional medicine. Some homeopathic medicines are derived from sick textiles. Many are used in powerful poisons, like the arsenic.
The homeopathy was a creation of the mind — and for some, too much imagination of the doctor and chemist German Samuel Hahnemann, at the end of 1700. He experienced the remedies himself and became convinced of that if an ingredient generates symptoms in a healthy person, it will fight the illnesses that produce the same symptoms. Also it prepared the theory of which if the ingredients are diluted to minuscule ends, even impossible to rake, this low concentration, paradoxically, makes them more effective.
The authorities of health revealed that Zicam, a homeopathic remedy against the cold, can annul the olfactory sense of a person.
Although many homeopathic remedies consist mainly of sugar or alcohol, the believers in these medicines swear that they work.
It is not strange that the patients do their own diagnoses to themselves and they prescribe the same homeopathic remedies. The remedies without recipe are a big business and many homeopathic medicines offer to fight symptoms so vague that it is almost impossible to say what evil they treat specially.
For example, a homeopathic ingredient, the carbonate of lithium, is used in the conventional medicine as a psychiatric drug. In the homeopathy, it presents it to itself like a medicine against "rheumatic pains in the region of the heart, disabling muscular tightening, cerebral congestion, insomnia and epilepsy".
| Actuality |
| How to choose good sunglasses |
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| Buy sunglasses for his protection, not for his style. photo: AP. |
AP
A recent study thinks that the price and the style, not the protection from the harmful beams of the sun, are the principal considerations of most of the persons when he buys sunglasses.
That is not good for the health, according to the American Association of Optometry, which realized the study.
“ The overexposure to the beams ultraviolet (UV) has been related to diverse problems, like the cataracts of the aging and the degeneration of the cornea”, pointed out Dr. Gregory W. Good, optómetra and spokesman of the association in a press release of the group. “Between other disorders that can appear there are the abnormal tumors in the surface of the eye and up to the solar burns in the same ones. These complaints can cause blurry vision, annoyance, reddening, tearing, temporary loss of the vision and, in some cases, blindness”.
He recommends the people to use quality glasses that offer protection appropriate UV and an extra one of wide wing whenever it is outdoors. Some contact glasses, it noted down Good, they contain a blocker of beams UV who helps to protect the eyes.
To prepare the ocular damage related to the beams UV, the association recommends to use glasses with protection enclosed UV in the cloudy days and in the winter.
To select sunglasses of quality or glasses of contact that they block between 99 and 100 per cent of the radiation GRAPE and UV-B, and that eliminate between 75 and 90 per cent of the visible light.
Make sure that his sunglasses coincide to the perfection as for color and are free of distortions or imperfection.
To select glasses of gray color because they reduce the intensity of the light without altering the color of the objects, what allows a vision of the much more natural color.
To do regular ocular examinations to him to monitor the ocular health, to support good vision and to keep up to date with the last thing in protection UV.
Also it turns out to be particularly important, according to the association, that the small children and the adolescents take glasses with protection UV because generally they spend more time to the sun that the adults, what puts them in more risk of ocular damage.
| To his health |
| Health, Central Topic in the Congress this Summer |
For Maria Gómez
the president of Mary's Center
This summer is going to be warmer than never in the Congress when the awaited debates begin on the health reform.
Since they know, since the President Barack Obama began his electoral campaign and during these five months that it takes in the administration, it has expressed firm interest to reform the system of health of this country.
The President proposes access, cost and quality, or, to extend the medical covering to million inhabitants who do not have health insurance, to regulate the wild costs of the medical insurances and to improve the quality of the services that they give him to the inhabitants; Exactly for what we, that we are employed at the sector of the health, are waiting for years to finish the damaged system of health that we take suffering per years.
The problem of all this debate that one comes is that in spite of the need for a reform is clear in the system of health of this country, the topic has many detractors who say that the president has too many things to resolve as to get into a topic so complex and as costly as the reform of the health. Those who continue it and they are with him say on the other hand that, on having reformed the health, a big step will happen to restore the economy of this country and that must be a priority for the President.
The President seems very firm in his intention and this way it has expressed it several times inclusive in his recent trip to the Middle East and to Europe where it expressed that the reform in the system of health of the United States is already not a luxury but a need that it is not possible to postpone.
The debates are going to be warmed up enough since there are going to touch white hot topics that many people will want neither to face nor to accept: increase of taxes, alertness on the insurance companies, programs of covering for which they cannot pay a medical insurance, subsidies, regulations and control panel.
For the time being, the Congress is in a preliminary preparation stage for the debates. For that, the different committees involved in the process are writing that the proposals of laws that they believe can reform the health. Then the long discussions, the tire will come and slacken and the voting.
The first one in having the proposals draft ready was Senator Edward Kennedy. Not all the drafts are ready but once it be, the review will come, then the final copies and later the debate.
The committees entrusted to write the law proposals there is imposed car a deadline for the day of the work, that is to say, the first week of September, so we wait to see how it begins and how this ends. The important thing is that it is a just reform where the minorities, like our Latin community and so many other communities that need to be born in mind, find a benefit to the announced health reform.
Otherwise, this alone would be a time of time, of money and of hopes and the repetition of what we take living per years.
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