Sorry, had to throw this in...
My topic of research for the week has been HIV in sports, by recommendation from Teach. I really didn't know what my topic was going to be, so this suggestion seemed perfect for me. While surfing the internet, I came across a peculiar case of a boxer who had tested positive for HIV in 1996. His name is Tommy Morrison, and he tested positive right before a fight over a decade ago. He had been trying for over 11 years to petition to box again, because he claimed that the test was a false positive. Since then, he has taken a number of tests, all of which have come back positive? Since an HIV positive competitor is not allowed to compete in the United States, his career was ruined. Could this have been a mistake? He was finally cleared to fight after his 11 year absence from the sport. Relating this to myself, I would be devastated if my professional career was ruined with news like this. This was his job, his main source of income, taken from him in a flash. With such a prevalence of blood in this sport, its no wonder why the boxing organizations would be so cautious about this type of situation.
The Organization I chose to research is called "Grassroots Soccer" in Africa. Founded in 2002, they "train African stars, coaches, teachers, and peer educators in the world's most HIV-affected countries to deliver an interactive HIV prevention and life skills curriculum to youth."(Grassroots Soccer 2009). Their mission is to use soccer as a tool to help youth world-wide to lead healthier lives. As you all may already know, the 2010 World Cup will be held in Africa, and this only helps rally what this organization is trying to do in this country. Soccer is the most popular sport in the entire world, making this a very effective tool to teach effective life-skills. Here is the link if anybody is interested: http://www.grassrootsoccer.org.
Did you know?:
Even though there is a risk or transferring HIV/AIDS through bloods in sports such boxing or mixed martial arts fighting, there has never been a reported case this happening in any sport!
Until next week....
Sources:
Morrison Medically Cleared to Fight Thursday. Article taken from ESPN.com. Retrieved September 16, 2009 from http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2772386
What We Do. 2009. Taken from GrassrootSoccer.org. Retrieved September 16, 2009 from http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/what-we-do/
False positive test results do happen, but to my knowledge not repeatedly. All of the tests for HIV look for evidence of antibodies. If a person was that sure that he or she is in fact negative, there are a couple of tests that might convince the medical community; first a blood test to rule out the use of anti-HIV drugs, then an ultra-sensitive viral load test. This test actually looks for HIV itself. An ultra-sensitive will show anything above 13 copies per milliliter of blood.
ReplyDeleteIt seems you have a very big passion for sports. I do not follow sports closely so your blog is a good update for me. I thought the fact about how there has never been a case of HIV spreading from those sports was interesting. I would of thought it would happen rather frequently since blood is usually a part of every sport.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that he basically lost his job, but there is a lot of blood in the sport of boxing, so I completly understand why they did not allow him to play.
ReplyDeleteHe could have had a PCR test done which looks for vDNA attached to human DNA. It could have found that connection inside of two weeks from the potential exposure. Not knowing if exposure took place this would have been an ideal test to do. Expensive for some but since this was his livelihood, he should have looked into it.
ReplyDeleteNow to your general blog. I like your first paragraph, but I want to also see how you are growing in this class, so please address what is taking place each week with you.
I look forward to reading about other sports figures. The Grassroots Soccer in Africa is a great way to get people to pay attention, especially since they are getting the soccer cup games.