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Situations with HIV risk?
What is the risk of contracting HIV from the following activities:
(1) Male fingering female vagina. I am asking because I understand that some STD's (herpes) can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact with the genitals. If a male fingers the female there is skin contact, though not genital contact. What is the risk? Also is there any risk when receiving a handjob from the female?
(2) Nipple Sucking: I heard mothers who breast feed can transmit some STD's and HIV to their child. Is there any risk of contracting anything when sucking the nipples of woman who is not pregnant and hasnt recently had a child?
(3) Oral Sex: For a male receiving oral sex from a female, is there and HIV risk? I understand that HIV is not transmitted via saliva (kissing is not a risk for example). So does this mean that receiving oral sex is safe? Would you recommend protected oral sex?
My main concern is HIV, but are any of the above activities risky with regards to any other STD's that i should know about.
Thank you.
(1) Male fingering female vagina. I am asking because I understand that some STD's (herpes) can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact with the genitals. If a male fingers the female there is skin contact, though not genital contact. What is the risk? Also is there any risk when receiving a handjob from the female?
(2) Nipple Sucking: I heard mothers who breast feed can transmit some STD's and HIV to their child. Is there any risk of contracting anything when sucking the nipples of woman who is not pregnant and hasnt recently had a child?
(3) Oral Sex: For a male receiving oral sex from a female, is there and HIV risk? I understand that HIV is not transmitted via saliva (kissing is not a risk for example). So does this mean that receiving oral sex is safe? Would you recommend protected oral sex?
My main concern is HIV, but are any of the above activities risky with regards to any other STD's that i should know about.
Thank you.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Directly to your questions. For more detail, read the forum; you can use the search link. The same questions have been addressed many times.
1) Zero. And the herpes risk you cite is overblown. There have been a couple of cases reported in the medical literature, but I have never seen such a case in 30+ years working in an STD clinic with 15,000 patients per year.
2) Zero. The risk of transmission by milk is lower than you seem to think. Among infants nursed by infected mothers, about 15% acquire HIV after 6 months. That's with swallowing a few ounces of milk day in and day out.
3) Addressed on this forum too many times to count. The estimate is 1 chance in 20,000 from mouth to penis, if the mouth partner has HIV. Some experts believe the actual risk is zero; there are no proved cases. Condoms are not generally recommended for oral sex, but some experts disagree (mostly because of other STDs, not HIV).
HHH, MD
1) Zero. And the herpes risk you cite is overblown. There have been a couple of cases reported in the medical literature, but I have never seen such a case in 30+ years working in an STD clinic with 15,000 patients per year.
2) Zero. The risk of transmission by milk is lower than you seem to think. Among infants nursed by infected mothers, about 15% acquire HIV after 6 months. That's with swallowing a few ounces of milk day in and day out.
3) Addressed on this forum too many times to count. The estimate is 1 chance in 20,000 from mouth to penis, if the mouth partner has HIV. Some experts believe the actual risk is zero; there are no proved cases. Condoms are not generally recommended for oral sex, but some experts disagree (mostly because of other STDs, not HIV).
HHH, MD
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Please move any further and ongoing discussions over to the HIV support forum.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Very interesting material … I would like to know where you found this article to read more.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
OK. Thanks for the heads-up.
This article is saying there is basically no chance of HIV infection through fingering. It emphisizes on the fact that it is only theoritical. If you do get a minute its a good read.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
You're making a common mistake. You are focusing on the theoretical mechanisms and biology and ignoring the real-world data. In the entire history of HIV/AIDS, there has never been a case of HIV known (or even suspected) to be acquired by fingering. That fact outweighs all the physiologic and biologic points you might make.
Otherwise too much information. I don't have time to read it. My reply above stands.
Otherwise too much information. I don't have time to read it. My reply above stands.
I found this information in regards to fingering on another site. Is this true?
In fingering, only menstrual blood carries any significantly infectious fluids. This is because the vaginal secretions found in the vaginal walls and the opening of the vagina are relatively uninfectious. it is the cervical fluids, deeper in the vaginal area, which pose a greater infectivity risk due to a higher concentration of active HIV.
Note I use the term ACTIVE and not alive. technically, HIV is not alive. It cannot reproduce on it's own. It requires a very specific type of white blood cell to infect with it's genetic material and essentially turn into an HIV producing factory. These receptive cells are commonly found in the urethra, in the dendritic cells under an uncircumsized foreskin, in the anus, and in the vagina. To a far lessor degree, there are some in the tonsil area as well.
So we have established that even if infectious fluids got into a cut in your finger, they would have to travel through your bloodstream and encounter one of these receptive cells. Not as likely event, at all. To the point where forcing it to happen in a lab using monkeys/primates and SHIV is largely unsuccessful. In a petri dish? Perhaps. In a bipedal organism? Difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
Now, about those infectious fluids. You realize that HIV mutates constantly, correct? Part of it's difficulty as regards a cure or vaccine is this constant mutation. Not the sort of mutation that makes a blood-borne pathogen airborne, but one which, in the long run, helps it to survive. HIV wears down an immune system by stimulating an immune response once the host is infected. And the host then produces antibodies, which destroy the viral particles and infected cells that are recognized.
At this point in infection, almost all the HIV is purged temporarily from the blood. However, reservoirs in the brain, organs, and lymphatic system are still there, and they mutate just enough so that the body must re-recognize them and mount another immune defense. This goes on for years and years in most cases, until the ability of the body to mount further defenses is compromised to the point where the immune system basically collapses. During this time, the host is left more and more defenseless against common pathogens, until finally it succumbs, either to an external pathogen or an internal function that an intact immune system would otherwise regulate.
Knowing this, and keeping in mind that the virus constantly mutates, it is not a particularly efficient virus. Most of the mutations are worthless, lacking one protein or another which makes it basically inactive, unviable. It is Darwinism at a miscroscopic scale, and greatly advanced.
See, the perfect HIV, the "goal," if you will, of HIV is to infect a host and reproduce and spread without killing the host. Not due to any altruism on it's part, but a dead host can't infect others. This is why outbreaks of Ebola and Marberg viruses are almost always brief and contained. it would take much engineering to reproduce a species-killer like "The Stand." It would involve a virus behaving in a totally different fashion than any other.
So the odds of an active, VIABLE viral particle finding it's way INTO your bloodstream, finding a receptive white blood cell (dendritic and T cells) and then successfully injecting it with it's genetic material - through a cut in the FINGER which almost instantly seals itself from external danger, and which bombards the area with elements specifically dsigned to protect and heal the skin - is purely in the realm of the theoretical. Why is there so little research? because it can't be forced to happen with any regularity in a lab, in a primate, in a monkey.
It has never been documented to happen. In the real world, the one we live in, it does not happen. It is hell on wheels to even make something like that occur in a carefully monitored laboratory. Even a petri dish is no friend to HIV.
Why do some doctors and scientists still caution? Because people mired in academia are rarely in touch with the actual, quantifiable world. The notion of "theoretical risk" and 'actual risk" are merged into a single hysterical message. There is a theoretical risk that a planet-destroying asteroid will smash the earth. There is a theoretical risk that our sun will explode. I think you get my intent here.
Let me recap:
Vaginal secretions: extremely unlikely to infect even if exposed to dendritic cells. Thus, cunnilingus is not considered a viable HIV risk.
Fingers: self sealing, and not containing receptive cells which HIV needs in order to infect.
Brothel: in western and industrialized nations, sex workers have a relatively low HIv rate compared to sex workers in Africa and other industrialized nations. However, even an HIv positive female is not going to have enough active viral particles in her vaginal secretions to present a risk to a finger or a tongue.
In fingering, only menstrual blood carries any significantly infectious fluids. This is because the vaginal secretions found in the vaginal walls and the opening of the vagina are relatively uninfectious. it is the cervical fluids, deeper in the vaginal area, which pose a greater infectivity risk due to a higher concentration of active HIV.
Note I use the term ACTIVE and not alive. technically, HIV is not alive. It cannot reproduce on it's own. It requires a very specific type of white blood cell to infect with it's genetic material and essentially turn into an HIV producing factory. These receptive cells are commonly found in the urethra, in the dendritic cells under an uncircumsized foreskin, in the anus, and in the vagina. To a far lessor degree, there are some in the tonsil area as well.
So we have established that even if infectious fluids got into a cut in your finger, they would have to travel through your bloodstream and encounter one of these receptive cells. Not as likely event, at all. To the point where forcing it to happen in a lab using monkeys/primates and SHIV is largely unsuccessful. In a petri dish? Perhaps. In a bipedal organism? Difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
Now, about those infectious fluids. You realize that HIV mutates constantly, correct? Part of it's difficulty as regards a cure or vaccine is this constant mutation. Not the sort of mutation that makes a blood-borne pathogen airborne, but one which, in the long run, helps it to survive. HIV wears down an immune system by stimulating an immune response once the host is infected. And the host then produces antibodies, which destroy the viral particles and infected cells that are recognized.
At this point in infection, almost all the HIV is purged temporarily from the blood. However, reservoirs in the brain, organs, and lymphatic system are still there, and they mutate just enough so that the body must re-recognize them and mount another immune defense. This goes on for years and years in most cases, until the ability of the body to mount further defenses is compromised to the point where the immune system basically collapses. During this time, the host is left more and more defenseless against common pathogens, until finally it succumbs, either to an external pathogen or an internal function that an intact immune system would otherwise regulate.
Knowing this, and keeping in mind that the virus constantly mutates, it is not a particularly efficient virus. Most of the mutations are worthless, lacking one protein or another which makes it basically inactive, unviable. It is Darwinism at a miscroscopic scale, and greatly advanced.
See, the perfect HIV, the "goal," if you will, of HIV is to infect a host and reproduce and spread without killing the host. Not due to any altruism on it's part, but a dead host can't infect others. This is why outbreaks of Ebola and Marberg viruses are almost always brief and contained. it would take much engineering to reproduce a species-killer like "The Stand." It would involve a virus behaving in a totally different fashion than any other.
So the odds of an active, VIABLE viral particle finding it's way INTO your bloodstream, finding a receptive white blood cell (dendritic and T cells) and then successfully injecting it with it's genetic material - through a cut in the FINGER which almost instantly seals itself from external danger, and which bombards the area with elements specifically dsigned to protect and heal the skin - is purely in the realm of the theoretical. Why is there so little research? because it can't be forced to happen with any regularity in a lab, in a primate, in a monkey.
It has never been documented to happen. In the real world, the one we live in, it does not happen. It is hell on wheels to even make something like that occur in a carefully monitored laboratory. Even a petri dish is no friend to HIV.
Why do some doctors and scientists still caution? Because people mired in academia are rarely in touch with the actual, quantifiable world. The notion of "theoretical risk" and 'actual risk" are merged into a single hysterical message. There is a theoretical risk that a planet-destroying asteroid will smash the earth. There is a theoretical risk that our sun will explode. I think you get my intent here.
Let me recap:
Vaginal secretions: extremely unlikely to infect even if exposed to dendritic cells. Thus, cunnilingus is not considered a viable HIV risk.
Fingers: self sealing, and not containing receptive cells which HIV needs in order to infect.
Brothel: in western and industrialized nations, sex workers have a relatively low HIv rate compared to sex workers in Africa and other industrialized nations. However, even an HIv positive female is not going to have enough active viral particles in her vaginal secretions to present a risk to a finger or a tongue.
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
I forgot to answer about other STDs and oral sex. In general, oral sex is safe sex. There is a small risk of herpes, of nongonococcal urethritis (NGU), and rarely of syphilis and gonorrhea. All these are too low risk to lose sleep over.
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