Fla. Woman Charged With Transmitting HIV To 200 Partners

mycfnow ^

[chance33_98]

Fla. Woman Charged With Transmitting HIV To 200 Partners

Posted: 8:05 a.m. EST March 8, 2003 Updated: 9:36 a.m. EST March 9, 2003

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Jacksonville woman is facing charges that she criminally transmitted the HIV virus to at least 200 unprotected parters. Melissa Jernigan, 24, told police that she tested positive for the virus in 1999 and continued to have unprotected sex.

It is a third-degree felony in Florida, punishable by five years in prison, for an HIV-positive person to have sex with a partner but not first informing them about the diagnosis of the virus.

"This crime is actually in the area of attempted murder," Sgt. H.R. Atkinson of the Duval County Sheriff's Office sex crimes unit told the Florida Times-Union for its Saturday editions.

Jernigan was being held Friday at the John E. Goode Pre-Trial Detention Facility in Jacksonville. It could not be immediately determined if she had obtained an attorney.

[Nov3]

In addition not a single peer , friend , neighbor or business client with whom I associate with has children who behave this way .

There are a lot of "fun girls" out there and they couldn't be any girls you know right!

[Ben Bolt]

No .. I pick my associations very carefully . It's not a matter of them not telling me it's just that folks in my life have raised there children mentally fit and socially proper .

The key word for me in your example is habit . I bet this woman felt funny . I believe I would .

[B4Ranch]

Roughly once every four days? That's what I would consider average for a young 20 year old.

[Ben Bolt]

Living in Ft. Lauderdale 'ya see plenty of that of course . It comes down to self respect & making good long term choices .

[LaraCroft]

200 partners in 2 years? I think she must be a guy.

[Ben Bolt]

Well I find this whole thing very interesting . I completely agree with that tag you have .

[It's me]

She had unprotected sex with over 200..not transmitted the virus. Its not 100% that she will transmit HIV.

Who CARES that she *may* not infect others. She did infect others and she is culpable by not informing them that she had AIDS.

THAT's what it has to do with this story.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Such calls for a literary solution. If convicted of spreading HIV she should have a Scarlet Letter "A" tattooed where it can be seen only when she's trying to spread it further. It can't lead to discrimination as only health care personnel or sex partners can legally see it and they need to know it.

[Mark17]

It is unusual for men to get Aids from women. More common the other way round. What is going on here?

I have heard that too, but would anyone here be willing to take the chance on having sex with her? I wouldn't do it even if "protected." It may or may not work.

[putupon]

transmitted the HIV virus to at least 200 unprotected parters. Melissa Jernigan, 24, told police that she tested positive for the virus in 1999>

somebody needs introduce this skank to Bubba.

[orfisher]

>>It is unusual for men to get Aids from women.<< You Sir, are dangerously ill informed.

[Neuromancer]

JACKSONVILLE, Fl (AP) -- A Jacksonville woman is facing charges that she criminally transmitted the HIV virus to at least 200 unprotected partners. Melissa Jernigan told police she tested positive for the virus in 1999 and continued to have unprotected sex.

It is a third-degree felony in Florida, punishable by five years in prison, for an HIV-positive person to have sex with a partner but not first informing them about the diagnosis of the virus. Sergeant HR Atkinson of the Duval County Sheriff's Office sex crimes unit told the Florida Times-Union this crime is comparable to attempted murder.

Jernigan was being held Friday at the John E. Goode Pre-Trial Detention Facility in Jacksonville. It could not be immediately determined if she had obtained an attorney.

[Tall_Texan]

So many men...

[chance33_98]

What's she have in her mouth?

[pitinkie]

If you understood what I wrote you would see I was saying she did not infect all she had sex with. The writer got it incorrect. I live here and she didnt infect all but had unprotected sex with them!!!! I never said it was right to have unprotected sex!!! I see HIV and AIDS all the time as I am a nurse that has taken care of plenty!!!!!!!!

[VMI70]

Thank you--
The scaremongers are out in force today.

[Neuromancer]

FOR RELEASE
Wednesday, March 29, 2000
Gregory Roa
(301) 402-1663
greg.roa@nih.gov
Low Blood Levels of HIV Reduce Risk of Heterosexual Transmission

The lower the level of HIV in the blood, the less likely infected persons will transmit the virus to heterosexual partners, according to a study in Africa supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, an international team reports results of the largest survey ever to examine the link between the concentration of virus in a person's blood-known as viral load-and other risk factors for HIV heterosexual transmission. The findings suggest viral load is the most important predictor of HIV transmission between men and women, regardless of the gender of the transmitting individual.

The two-and-a-half-year survey followed more than 400 heterosexual couples, in each of which only one person was HIV-positive. The study found that the more virus individuals carried, the more likely they were to infect their sexual partners. Conversely, no one who had fewer than 1,500 copies of HIV per milliliter (ml) of blood transmitted the virus to his or her partner. "The findings uphold the strategic benefit of lowering levels of HIV in the blood," says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which supported the study. "This research lends hope that even if HIV cannot be eradicated from the body, antiretroviral drugs or vaccines may help reduce heterosexual transmission of HIV, the predominant way AIDS is spreading in Africa and many parts of the world."

The study, co-funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), took place in Uganda's rural Rakai district. Ugandan researchers from Makerere University in Kampala and the Uganda Virus Research Institute/Ministry of Health in Entebbe collaborated with U.S. colleagues from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and NIH. The article's senior author, Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., is professor of medicine at Hopkins and senior investigator in NIAID's Laboratory of Immunoregulation.

Dr. Quinn and his colleagues set out to better define risk factors associated with heterosexual transmission. "Viral load was the critical factor among the couples in our study," he explains. "We observed a clear dose response. With every 10-fold rise in the concentration of HIV in the bloodstream, transmission more than doubled."

The study prospectively followed 415 HIV-discordant couples-228 HIV-positive men and 187 HIV-positive women and their HIV-negative, long-term sexual partners-who were participating in the Rakai Project, a larger trial of HIV prevention. All the couples received free condoms, voluntary confidential HIV testing and counseling, treatment, and health education directed at preventing HIV transmission. In this remote district of Uganda, anti-HIV drugs are not available.

The research team visited the couples at 10-month intervals for up to 30 months, conducting private, same-sex interviews. Researchers assessed a variety of factors, such as behaviors (for example, condom use, number of sexual partners and frequency of intercourse), general health history, AIDS-defining symptoms or conditions, and circumcision status. Study volunteers also gave blood and urine samples, and women provided self-collected vaginal swabs for evaluation of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

Individuals were privately notified of test results during the study and encouraged to share their HIV status with their partners. Despite provision of condoms, HIV testing and counseling, and health education, 90 (22 percent) of the previously uninfected partners became HIV-positive. Using blood samples archived from each study visit, the scientists later determined HIV viral loads using polymerase chain reaction assays. They found higher viral load correlated with higher rates of HIV transmission. Nearly 80 percent of the cases of new infections resulted from exposure to HIV-positive partners with more than 10,000 copies of HIV per ml of blood.

"Our findings are strikingly consistent with results from studies of viral load in cases of mother-to-child HIV infection," notes Dr. Quinn. "Theoretically, just as drugs have helped reduce perinatal transmission, antiretroviral regimens that dampen HIV viral load should also be effective against heterosexual transmission of HIV. But we need more studies to confirm this."

Antiretroviral therapy is seen primarily as a benefit to the HIV-infected individual, say the study's co-principal investigators, Maria J. Wawer, M.D., of Columbia and Ronald H. Gray, M.D., of Hopkins; however, the new results suggest that measures to reduce viral load may provide a means of controlling the epidemic, they comment. Similarly, Ugandan principal investigator Nelson Sewankambo, M.D., dean of medicine at Makerere University, notes the need to develop low-cost and feasible methods of reducing viral load for use in resource-poor settings.

Along with viral load, the team also examined several other important variables for risk of HIV transmission. Overall, they found no statistical difference in the rate of transmission from male to female compared with female to male. However, circumcision in the male was significantly associated with decreased HIV acquisition. In addition, younger couples (aged 15 to 19 years) experienced the highest rates of seroconversion.

"The Rakai Project is the most comprehensive survey of heterosexual transmission in Africa, where the HIV epidemic has hit the hardest," says project officer Rod Hoff, D.Sc., with NIAID's Division of AIDS. "This team's study is remarkable for its scope and quality of science, and it points the way for developing new interventions to prevent HIV transmission."

[It's me]

I understand that.

When I was a nurse in '80 I took care of a patient who had AIDS--only no one knew it as AIDS back then. It was a new disease that was just beginning to be noticed.

[pitinkie]

I took care of AIDS patients in the early 80's in Newark...very sad because few would care for them. Also, my brother is HIV positive and I would never wnat anyone ever to have unprotected sex!

[MonroeDNA]

Actually, js is correct. It is rare for a hetorosexual man to get HIV from a woman.

http://www.ama-assn.org/special/womh/library/scan/vol_3/no_17/aje.htm

Less than 1-in-a-thousand for women to get it from men (.0009), and 1/8th that rate for men to get it from women.

That makes it a 1-in-ten-thousand chance.