People seem to have forgotten that, in the years before effective HIV treatments existed, many people lived and worked quite normally with HIV for a *long* time. Sometimes close to a decade.

Think of Freddie Mercury, still recording albums.

Magic Johnson, playing elite professional basketball right up until he retired, and only then disclosing his HIV status.

Rock Hudson, still acting.

Rudolf Nureyev, still directing and choreographing and dancing in major productions.

Arthur Ashe, still writing, travelling, campaigning.

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@1goodtern

Dec 30, 2025

There's something else very important about the @jonstewart video.

"You go 'are you sick' and they say 'I don't want to talk about it'.

When Jon Stewart asks why you're wearing a mask, TALK ABOUT IT.

Say one of these easy things.
Pick one, learn it:

I wear a mask because Covid is airborne.

I wear a mask because I don't want Covid again.

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@1goodtern

Dec 30, 2025

oh ffs, honestly, how do these people not know that covid infection makes you vulnerable to shingles.
Here's the exact mechanism:

Shingles is your old chickenpox infection (VZV), once sitting dormant in nerve tissue, now waking up when cell-mediated immunity dips.

The immune control that keeps VZV asleep is heavily *T-cell driven*. When T-cells are depleted, exhausted, or distracted, VZV gets its chance to resurge - what was once chicken pox, is now *shingles*.

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@1goodtern

Dec 26, 2025

It feels worth saying that, over the last year, I've seen a growing number of people whose energy, vitality, and enthusiasm are visibly draining month by month.

They're just looking physically and mentally shattered, sliding into a strange exhausted apathy.

In my work, I've always encountered people struggling this way.

But in small numbers.

Now there are swathes.

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@1goodtern

Dec 23, 2025

Checking back in on the state of polyomavirus infections.

These are viruses that almost all of us carry for life.
In healthy people they usually sit quietly in the background doing nothing much...

... but in people with weakened immune systems they can cause kidney damage, urinary tract disease, neurological problems and serious complications after transplants...

Numbers used to be very stable.
Year after year the rolling annual totals in England hovered around the same level... but not since 2021.

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