Media Watch
Glow-in-the-dark felines: The ‘cat’s meow’ of HIV research
A glow-in-the-dark cat-slash-monkey hybrid... Sounds like something that a mad creator unleashes, which inevitably ends up terrorizing Tokyo.
You would be incorrect if you thought that this is the plot for the latest sci-fi movie. The glow-in-the-dark moggies are in fact helping scientists understand how to block the HI-virus from establishing itself in the body.
So what do you get when you cross a cat with a monkey and a jellyfish?
Agony Aunts: Love triangles are also HIV’s ‘Bermuda’ triangles
While agony-aunts have traditionally offered us an objective, sympathetic and supportive shoulder to cry on, they should embrace and use their platforms to spread the word on HIV prevention.
Despite blatant evidence that correspondents are engaging in unprotected sex with more than one partner at a time (termed multiple or concurrent partnerships or MCP), very few agony aunts address the risk of exposure to HIV lurking in the trysts of their correspondents.
Thankfully Move!’s agony-aunt Sis Anne is breaking the mould.
Articles on forced jabs choose sensation over information
Reports of contraceptive injections administered to girls as young as 10 at a primary school in Port Elizabeth, have raised a dull hum throughout the news media.
However reports leave questions around rape and HIV and HIV prevention in general unaddressed.
Sundry articles have also reported that girls at a Port Elizabeth primary school were given the contraceptive injections without their parents consent. The articles have also chosen to focus on the fact that the girls were told that the injections would prevent unwanted pregnancy if they were raped.
While shocking and sensational details such as these are common media fodder, they are often the sole focus, leaving other pertinent questions unaddressed. Specifically questions around whether or not messages about HIV prevention were communicated to the girls are left unconsidered.
SA HIV prevention to get shot in the arm
Hopes of eradicating HIV run high as the latest and greatest HIV vaccine trial heads to SA.
The Star and online news provider health-e report that the RV144 vaccine met with unprecedented success in trials conducted in Thailand.
Manyi’s editing eye picks up real news
Today the front page of the ‘Manyi Times’ screams ‘Winning the HIV battle.’ It’s hard to choose what to be more bemused about: The fact that HIV seems to be front page news or the slightly controversial Jimmy Manyi having a newspaper named after his person.
But the 'Manyi Times' is not the real deal and HIV doesn’t make headlines. The front page is only an artist’s impression of what Jimmy Manyi would include in the paper if he was editor for a day.
