Expert Available to Discuss HIV

According to recent news reports, a man known as the “Berlin Patient” has been cured of HIV. Timothy Ray Brown was HIV positive and being treated for leukemia in Germany in 2007 when he received a bone marrow stem cell transplant from a man who was immune to HIV.

Related link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110603/us_yblog_thelookout/first-man-functionally-cured-of-hiv

The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine is now funding research in San Francisco to try to replicate Brown’s result. But for now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates more than 1 million Americans still live with the immunodeficiency virus, and more than a half a million have died after developing AIDS.

In light of National HIV Testing Day on Monday (June 27), Linda Brice, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor in the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Anita Thigpen Perry School of Nursing, and co-organizer of Teen Straight Talk, is available to discuss the importance of practicing safe sex to prevent STDs. Teen Straight Talk is a free program designed to motivate adults and their children to talk about topics including abstinence, teen pressures, sex education and responsible decision making.

CONTACT: Linda Brice, linda.brice@ttuhsc.edu, cell: (806) 241-3652.

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