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Last week the CDC (Atlanta) made a surprise announcement that every American citizen should be regularly tested for HIV, from the age of 13 and up! I say this is surprising because this is the first time that a branch of the U.S. government is officially aknowledging that teens as young as 13 are now at real risk for getting HIV/AIDS. We know from the overwhelming amount of research that maturing adolescents are becoming sexually involved in the early teen years. By the age of 16, a majority of US teenagers have reported that they have had at least one sexual experience. By 18, 70% of males report that they have had sexual expierences, as do 60% of females. I believe these numbers are on the low side because some teens say to me that when asked on a survey form at school about sex or drugs, they lie because they don't want to share their intimate personal secrets with adult authority figures (where they canbe identified). The point however, about the CDC announcement that is important to us at TeenAIDS, is that it recognizes that a teenHIV epidemic is brewing in the U.S., a point that I have been talking about for 15 years.

ALL TEENS ARE POTENTIALLY AT RISK FOR HIV; AND A  MAJORITY OF TEENAGERS ARE AT RISK WHENEVER THEY HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX.

My advice: Get tested if you want. It can't hurt. It might help a teenager to know their HIV-positive status because there are medicines available to help slow down the negative physical effects of AIDS. However in this day of cyberspace record-keeping, I thtink it is wise to be tested anonymously - and not use your own name (anonymous testing means you are given a number or a special code that identifies your test results). Why? Because nothing can be kept truly secret and we know that insurance companies will decline to take as clients  young people who have simply gone for a HIV test because to them, that is a sign that these people must feel that they could possibly be at risk for HIV/AIDS and thus, would be bad for insurance coverage.

Please remember that AIDS testing is never accurate to the date you are tested. There is always a lag time between actual HIV infection and the ability of any tests to discover the HIV antibodies.

Volunteers needed: Please go to our World AIDS Day box above on the front page to volunteer your time and talents to make the first ever live webcast to teens a big success. If you know a school that would like to sponsor its own World AIDS Day event and have it publicized on our site with photos and recognition, tell them about our webcast. If you are a teen or you know a teenager, and would like to volunteer to set up an event, I urge you to do so ASAP. We want to reach 1,000,000 youth on World AID Day's Friday December 1st and Saturday, December 2nd.

Looking for Adult support: TeenAIDS is in the process of interviewing adult leaders to join our Board of Directors, our Global Advisory Council, or become a Senior Advisor.  Please contact Dr. John at our email  address :    <[email protected]>

Dr. John Announces exciting new events including a live
worldwide webcast on December 1st and 2nd!

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