Biology 100
Dr. Koob
6/20/2012
Reflection Paper
According to the
article reported in June 20, 2012, the children who exposed to HIV in the womb
have more possibility to lose the ability of hearing. The report was based on
the experiments participated by more than 200 children from seven to sixteen
years old, and all had been exposed to HIV before birth, 60 percent of them
were HIV-positive as the result. Furthermore, the risks of having hearing loss
for children who explode to HIV have as high as 2 to 3 times of risk than the
normal. Moreover, the acquisition of language skills may delay even a mild
injury of hearing loss occurs, also the use of assistive devices will be
required if a more severe situation happens. The author also claims that the
problems which the transmission of sound from the nerves of the ear to the
brain were one another factor of hearing loss. (Children Exposed…1).
Depends on what we
learned in the class, male to male sexual contact ranks the most prevalent way
to spread Aids (53%), followed by high-risk heterosexual contact which is 31
percent of the total. The rests are injection drug use and the people who did
both male to male sexual contact and IDU. Also, there are 33 million living
with HIV, and 70 percent of them are in developing countries.
There are eight
steps of how HIV virus entre to human's body and cause the immune system died.
(1) attachment and entry, (2) reverse transcription, (3) DNA insertion, (4)
transcription, (5) translation, (6)assembly, (7) budding, (8) release. When the
virus damages the cell wall of helper T-cells, it kills them, and eventually,
the immune system can't keep up with the virus.
The article that I
am talking about brings us one new concept about Aids, it is not only damage
the immune system of human's body, but also affect the transmission of sound
from the nerves of the ear to the brain, which cause the hearing loss. This
piece of news helps us know more about the harm of Aids. And also we should get
more aware of protecting ourselves from getting it.
Works Cited
NIH/National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development. "Children exposed to HIV in the womb at increased risk for
hearing loss." ScienceDaily, 20 Jun. 2012. Web. 21 Jun. 2012.
Link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620154003.htm
