CDC's Methodology Misses Women at Risk for HIV

Don Bruner and Jackie Dozier of the Black Men Latino Men Health Crisis and the Women HIV/AIDS Initiatives have called attention to the CDC's "outdated" definitions of the groups most at risk for HIV infection, noting that the women who are contracting one-third of all new HIV infections don't fit into those historically high-risk groups, including men who have sex with men, IV drug users, transplant recipients, among others. Bruner and Dozier write, "For women, the result of this flawed methodology is devastating. Too many women are left uninformed of their HIV status, lacking proper care and unable to reduce transmission to others."

RH Reality Check's coverage of the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City includes accounts from advocates pushing attention to women's health and vulnerability to HIV, including:

• Neha Sood, World Leaders Must Address Women's Needs at IAC
• Grace Sedio, When You Think of Botswana and HIV/AIDS, Think of the Women
• Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, Linking the Twin Pandemics: HIV and Gender-Based Violence
• Heather Boonstra, At IAC, Moving Forward on SRH/HIV Integration

Why Pregnancy Begins at Implantation

On ScienceProgress, Jessica Arons takes a close look why medical consensus has determined that pregnancy begins at implantation -- unsurprisingly, for good scientific reasons. Firstly, there is no way to tell that a woman is pregnant prior to implantation; her body does not offer any measurable signals. If the existence of pregnancy can't be determined, well, then, "we can treat all women as potentially pregnant -- and refuse them access to drugs and devices that would help them prevent pregnancy."

Second, Arons points out, from one-third to one-half of all fertilized eggs never manage to implant. And even if you could detect an embryo prior to implantation, when would this storied moment of conception take place?

The process of fertilization itself can take up to 24 hours. The zygote then begins to divide and differentiate into the preembryo and travels down the fallopian tubes toward the uterus. Implantation of the preembryo into the uterine lining typically begins about 5 days after fertilization and will be completed between 8 and 18 days after fertilization. Thus, despite the assertions of social conservatives, there is no one "moment" of conception.

Teens Don't Speak Ab-Only

Abstinence-only curricula may position sexual activity and abstinence as opposites, but few teens think that way, University of Washington researcher Tatiana Masters has found. ScienceDaily describes Masters's findings:

Rather than being an either or choice, she said, a teenager's decision to become sexually active can be likened to getting on an escalator. At first, adolescents don't think about sex very much. Once they step on the escalator the first step is abstinence. Then as they begin to be aware of sex, there are other steps and choices to be made that eventually lead to having intercourse.

"With these programs you often hear 'sex just happens' and adolescents are having less safe sex," says Masters. "This detracts from adolescents having a choice, and this leads to more dangerous sex with more sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies."

Activism for World Breastfeeding Week

World Breastfeeding Week is wrapping up, and the Daily Women's Health Policy Report has highlighted some of the latest US breastfeeding activism -- including a new Colorado law requiring that employers give their employees time and private space to breastfeed infants; breastfeeding education campaigns in Kentucky; and the push for a new Breastfeeding Bill of Rights in New York City.

Parting Shot

"In a consumer age, the potlatch wedding takes on the role of church and state and tradition in a prior age. Having done away with the sacrament, the covenant or the consequences, all we know anymore is the story, and we're hoping it's good enough." That's Linda Hirshman on Broadsheet.