i just had to post this


She’s a young, attractive New Yorker who has a lot going for her: artistic talent, affluent parents, an elite education and an outgoing personality. Her future looks good. Her name is Alison Gertz and she’s sixteen years old.

Alison and her mother are close. They even discuss that most difficult of subjects – sex. She tells her mother when she plans to lose her virginity and together they go to a gynaecologist for advice on contraceptives.

The day she has her first sexual encounter, street smart teenager that she is, Alison thinks she’s well prepared. She’s already on the pill.

Cort Brown is 27, and a bartender. He’s an acquaintance of Alison’s and she thinks he’s “the most beautiful man” she’s ever seen. A year after she meets him, he comes to her home (she’s picked a time when her parents are away) bringing champagne, candles, roses and something else. Alison is blown away by the romance.

But the actual experience doesn’t live up to the billing for either of them. So they both agree not to sleep together again. And they don’t.

Fast forward six years to 1989. Aged 22, Alison becomes very ill. Doctors can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with her. Finally, one doctor makes a frightening diagnosis: Alison is HIV positive.

She contacts her previous boyfriends, urges them to get tested. They’re all HIV negative so she traces back farther. To her first sexual partner, Cort. Now she finds out he was bisexual and has since died of AIDS.

What does she do next? She goes public with her HIV infection so that other young people can learn from her experience. After all, she’s one of them, so they’re more likely to listen to her message.

And she’s right – she becomes an instant hit as a spokesperson for HIV, speaking to students in the US. Her story inspires a movie. The World Health Organization distributes a film about her.

Alison is a young woman on a mission, warning that anyone can get infected with HIV. Her parents support her all the way. She’s their only child so one can only imagine how difficult it is for them to watch her health deteriorate.

They are both at her bedside on August 8, 1992 when she dies of an AIDS-related illness, at 26. Alison’s three best friends set up an organization to continue her work of educating young people about the life-changing consequences of HIV and AIDS. Her parents also set up a foundation to help raise funds for AIDS research.

Interestingly, the XVII International AIDS Conference is being held in Mexico City this week. At about the same time in 1992, Alison Gertz died of AIDS.

What lessons can we learn from Alison’s story? I’ll list three that stand out for me.

First, parents need to discuss these issues with their children. OK, maybe few Nigerian parents will discuss contraception with their teenage daughters – heck, many parents won’t even discuss sex at all. But isn’t that like putting your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away? Many teenagers are sexually active whether their parents know it or not.

Interestingly, after she disclosed her HIV status, Alison promoted abstinence as the only real safe sex. But she told young people to protect themselves if they were going to have sex. She knew that not everyone would abstain. She herself was sexually active after finding out she was HIV positive, although she did disclose her status to her boyfriend. After that, they slept together twice using double protection. But he didn’t feel safe and they ended their relationship.

It’s not only teenagers that need educating about HIV and AIDS; adults need this too. So lesson 2 [/b]from Alison’s story is this: if you are sexually active, don’t dismiss the threat of AIDS unless you are in a 100% monogamous (meaning no cheating on either side, ever) relationship and you are both HIV-negative.

People choose to take risks but no one chooses to become HIV positive. Except for the thrill-seeking “bug chasers” who deliberately set out to become infected by having unprotected sex with HIV positive people.

[b]Lesson 3: every experience, no matter how painful, can be channelled into something positive. Alison didn’t just bemoan her fate, as others might have done. She decided to help others, to warn them against putting themselves at risk of HIV and AIDS. As she said in an interview reported in The New York Times in March 1989:

“If I die, I would like to have left something, to make the world a little better before I go, to help people sick like me and prevent others from getting this.”

Let me ask you: what can Nigerian parents and young people learn from Alison’s story?

By chichi layor

Tragic!!!!


_{need sum tym brb!!}

hiv/aids has never been one of my fav topics,
so maybe i really wud find it hard to say more than one word.

above being careful, lets be prayerful.
cos i have heard of cases where inactive sexual ppl get diagnosed and eventually died from this ailment.

izeek:

above being careful, lets be prayerful.
because i have heard of cases where inactive sexual people get diagnosed and eventually died from this ailment.

datz bcuz. . .
Itz not solely a sexual transmitted ailment!!



o mase o!!

Lord Save our soulz!!!

Lord mercy, even with all the precautions we take. . . . .

izeek:

hiv/aids has never been one of my fav topics,
so maybe i really would find it hard to say more than one word.

above being careful, lets be prayerful.
because i have heard of cases where inactive sexual people get diagnosed and eventually died from this ailment.

Very rare but true.

@ moyola
i realised its not just a sexual transmitted ailment,
i learnt one way to get infected is by talking to u.

izeek:

@ moyola
i realised its not just a sexual transmitted ailment,
i learnt one way to get infected is by talking to u.

Egamii o!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sumborri help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4 where u learn say by talkin 2 me u'll get infected?!!!!

wtchu insinuating?

since when u decided to lecture me on the various ways to get infected,
i felt u left out the most vital of them all , u.

I waznt in anyway lecturing u!

juzz cut it out!!

or u wana get infected?

She wasnt lecturing you izeek. She was pointing out the fact in your post, as did i.
That comment was. . . . eeesh. . . unfair.

@moyola
alright fine
sorri my bad,

u berra b!!

i berra b,
nah him dey make me no dey apologise to nigerians.
ur simplewelcome don turn to u bera be.

Gamine:


Fast forward six years to 1989. Aged 22, Alison becomes very ill. Doctors can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with her. Finally, one doctor makes a frightening diagnosis: Alison is HIV positive.

She contacts her previous boyfriends, urges them to get tested. They’re all HIV negative so she traces back farther. To her first sexual partner, Cort. Now she finds out he was bisexual and has since died of AIDS.

How is it possible that all previous boyfriends tested negatively and yet it was only her first boyfriend that had the virus? Are you implying Cort was the only man she ever sexual intimacy with, and none of her previous boyfriends had such intimacy with her again? Why would she then urge all previous boyfriends to go for the test?

Something is definitely spooky about the story.

izeek:

i berra b,
nah him dey make me no dey apologise to nigerians.
your simplewelcome don turn to u bera be.

wetin concern nigerian 4 diz mata?

aren'tchu a nigerian?

@Feu

it is surely possible to have sex with an HIV-infected person and not get infected.

Gamine:

@Feu

it is surely possible to have sex with an HIV-infected person and not get infected.

I do not know the number of men she might have sex with, but within 6 years as a lady, I do be inclined to think that it would have been more than 3 men.

Her first sexual experience was with the use of pills-contraceptives, which implies that Cort must have had sexual intimacy with her without the use of condoms.

How feasible and reasonable is it that every other guy she has had sexual contacts with (after Cort) used a condom, and they never got the virus from her?

I still hold on to my assumption that something somewhere is wrong with the story.

Such a sad story, dieing just when life gets sweeter

Is it a true life story?

It is a true life story.

i have evn watched the movie on it.

@Feu, theres nothing fishy here.

Remember she prolly didnt like sex very much

and the times she may have had it, insisted on condoms

well it is wat it is.

And to think that some don't believe that AIDS is real.

Tgirl4real:

And to think that some don't believe that AIDS is real.

they can as well believe that, "dying" is not real

sad story

but life can be a bitch atimes

glad , she made good use of her shortime

doubt i would do the same if i was in her shoes


abeg dont mind me

poster

who brought about that topic?

as why did u pick

Fatal Love And The Girl Next Door

as the header?

@Ariblaze

Duh.