Features

Welcome to Positive Nation!

Letter to Rt Hon James Purnell MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Dear James,
I am writing an open letter to you on behalf of our readers regarding your work on the Disability Living Allowance – Special Rules Exercise.

When too much, is not enough

Is sexual compulsion a sign of mental distress – or do serial shaggers just have bigger appetites?

It’s like eating peanuts; have one and you want another straight away. You don’t enjoy them; you don’t even like them that much, but they’re there; so you have one after another, and then a few more, just because you can.” Meet Joseph, a bright, articulate and apparently self-composed man in his late 20s, describing the sexual compulsion he has lived with since his teens.

Public attitudes
towards HIV

Attitudes towards and understanding of HIV are continually changing. Throughout its history HIV has triggered a range of social and emotional responses from fear, denial, stigma and discrimination to compassion, solidarity and support. Experience has shown us that understanding and knowledge play a large part in determining a person’s response to HIV. But where are we today? How much do people know? Have we moved beyond the stigma? What more needs to be done? The National AIDS Trust has been investigating.

Those in charge of leading the battle against HIV and AIDS in India have just announced that they will roll out much-need ‘second line’ drugs, meant to treat those who have started showing resistance to ‘first line’ treatment. This is welcome, argue experts, but policymakers should also urgently look at problems plaguing the first line roll-out.

Benefit Reviews Causing Stress and Hardship

PN examines the deeply disturbing events surrounding Disability Living Allowance.

It’s good to talk?

In July last year the Children & Young People HIV Network held a residential for 25 young people, all infected with HIV and aged between 13-18 years old. The aim was to find out what it has been like growing up with HIV in the UK. The young people came from all across the country, most of them knew no-one else, and yet they travelled for hours on trains to have the chance to meet other young people ‘like them’.

Side Effects

The following questions cover concerns when starting treatment for the first time.

Step into the Future

I’m not talking about wormholes, intergalactic travel or alien life. Instead, I am referring to time:

Are you affected by new changes to the Immigration Rules?

From 29 February 2008 refusal of entry clearance or leave to enter, cancellation of leave or refusal to vary leave will be mandatory where false representations have been made or false documents submitted, whether or not these are material to the application and whether or not the applicant knew that such representations were being made or documents submitted.

Let’s get physical!

Fitness. There’s a word to bring terror to the hearts of many of you reading this magazine. It used to have the same effect on me - like presenting Carrie Bradshaw with a pair of espadrilles; I would have run screaming from the room. However “fitness”, if you hadn’t noticed, is the watchword for our times. We are all being instructed to take control of our bodies and along the way stop being such a drain on NHS resources.