Is contracting HIV through punching someone a possible outcome?

[Casket]

First my apologies because I have already asked this question many years ago but the thread is no longer around. So this is a variation of the same question. Is the following scenario possible? If let's say someone uses a big right hook which causes the other guy's gums to bleed and then a second punch which connects to the guy's tooth which has HIV infected blood on it because the gum blood has dripped on it. Is this an accurate way to contract HIV? If not, are there more believable,possible and accurate fight-connected ways of getting the virus that you can describe/tell me? Thanks in advance.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

First my apologies because I have already asked this question many years ago but the thread is no longer around. So this is a variation of the same question. Is the following scenario possible? If let's say someone uses a big right hook which causes the other guy's gums to bleed and then a second punch which connects to the guy's tooth which has HIV infected blood on it because the gum blood has dripped on it. Is this an accurate way to contract HIV? If not, are there more believable,possible and accurate fight-connected ways of getting the virus that you can describe/tell me? Thanks in advance.

I searched for this and found this:

"It would be extremely unlikely, but not impossible for HIV to be transmitted through a fight. Theoretically, the fight needs to be bad enough that there is a decent amount of blood and also, there are open wounds that are deep enough to allow the virus to enter the bloodstream.

If there is blood present, then theoretically there is a risk of transmission. So yes, it can happen but the likelihood of it happening is very, very small. If you’ve been in a fight with someone and you’re worried, getting tested just for the peace of mind is always a good idea."
Source: Can you get HIV from fighting? - NWAC STBBI

So your scenario may work, but the wound from the tooth needs to be deep and connected to the bloodstream. I would say that this sort of thing is plausible and since you're writing fiction you have a degree of freedom here as well.

Some things you may want to do is avoid going into too much detail, just write that the hand got a deep wound from the tooth, and that there was a lot of blood from both of them and you should be fine in my opinion.

 

[Also]

In general, hand infections transmitted from teeth to knuckles during fistfights are common enough that there's a name for them I don't recall.

Transmitting AIDS through a single encounter of any kind other than medical blood transfusion is uncommon but does happen, so your scenario as described is at least plausible.

 

[Naomasa298]

Though HIV is no longer quite the automatic death sentence that it used to be with modern anti-retroviral drugs.

 

[Casket]

Though HIV is no longer quite the automatic death sentence that it used to be with modern anti-retroviral drugs.

If I want the character with HIV to be someone who is well-remembered after his death, then I should I set the story during the 90s in order to have the character die (without very advanced modern HIV medicine)? Or were the HIV medicine during the 90s already sophisticated enough to lengthen the lifespan of someone with HIV?

 

[Casket]

Another question. I saw an episode of one of those CSI shows which had a plot of some guy stabbing someone and the blood splattered onto his eyes and his eye vein being exposed, he got HIV. Is that really possible?* If yes, then which are the body parts that could be slashed/stabbed that would cause a blood splatter? I think certain body parts will "splatter" more than others when injured.

*I thought that when blood exits the body through splattering, the virus dies in few seconds by exposure to the air?

 

[Naomasa298]

If I want the character with HIV to be someone who is well-remembered after his death, then I should I set the story during the 90s in order to have the character die (without very advanced modern HIV medicine)? Or were the HIV medicine during the 90s already sophisticated enough to lengthen the lifespan of someone with HIV?

Well, heavyweight boxer Tommy Morrison (who appeared in Rocky V) apparently had his first positive test in 1989, and it was confirmed in 1996. He was banned, but made a brief comeback in 2008, after testing negative (meaning he had a negligible viral load). He died in 2013. He would probably have lived longer, but I suspect, given that his wife was an HIV denier, he wasn't looking after himself properly, although I have no evidence of that.

 

[Naomasa298]

Tyson bit off part of Evander Holyfield's ear. He had blood in his mouth, and if he had had a mouth wound, and Holyfield had been HIV positive, the risk would have been high.

 

[CdnWriter]

If I want the character with HIV to be someone who is well-remembered after his death, then I should I set the story during the 90s in order to have the character die (without very advanced modern HIV medicine)? Or were the HIV medicine during the 90s already sophisticated enough to lengthen the lifespan of someone with HIV?

Well......there's a stigma around HIV and AIDS that persist to this day. People who have contracted HIV via blood transfusions and not immoral means such as gay sex or IV drug use are judged differently.

Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada - Wikipedia

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/krever-inquiry

Those individuals ^^^ were seen as innocent victims and their illness was the consequence of a "corrupt" system.

Then there's Ryan White who was discriminated against because he contracted HIV from blood transfusions:

Ryan White - Wikipedia

BUT....there's also the case of Issac Asimov who was on Reddit's "Today I Learned" earlier this year as being HIV+ from a blood transfusion and his doctors convinced him & his family to hide the diagnosis, possibly so people would still get lifesaving assistance even though this was one of the risks. I've can see both sides of the issue, but I wish Issac A had gone public and helped to reduce the stigma around the disease further just as Freddie Mercury of Queen did. I feel we would be further along, maybe even had a cure by now if *ALL* of the people with power were public about their diagnosis and how they got there.

Isaac Asimov - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/er6hp8/til_that_isaac_asimov_died_from_complications_of

Back to your question, in the 90s there were drugs that existed to help manage the disease, treat it - but not cure it - but they were insanely expensive so not everyone who needed the treatments could afford them and there were also a LOT of pills to take at specific times. You may want to research the E.R. character, Jeanie Boulet, a physician assistant on the program who was infected with HIV+ from her cheating spouse, Al Boulet and how she navigated the disease and the medical regiment around the drug cocktail. The musical, "RENT" features characters who are HIV+ and struggle with affording their medications and the rent.

There was also a case in my province, Manitoba, where a family wanted to adopt an HIV+ child from a foreign country and the Manitoba government refused to allow it because they did not want the Manitoba taxpayers to be on the hook for the cost of the person's HIV medications. The newspaper editorials of the day discussed the drugs costing $10,000 a month - health care in Canada is free, funded by taxpayers. This took place around 1990 - 2000 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada if you want to jump into the rabbit hole of researching it. I'll try & find more inform later but may take a while.

 

[CdnWriter]

If I want the character with HIV to be someone who is well-remembered after his death, then I should I set the story during the 90s in order to have the character die (without very advanced modern HIV medicine)? Or were the HIV medicine during the 90s already sophisticated enough to lengthen the lifespan of someone with HIV?

I spent 4 hours at the Winnipeg Public Library today and I couldn't find the stories on the topic of the Manitoba government wanting to deny permission for the family to adopt an HIV+ child due to the medical costs being $10,000 a month. The folks working at the reference desk couldn't help either. It's annoying because I 1,000% remember reading the story but I can't find any of the articles in the newspaper archives or with google.ca or wherever.

If you want to devote time to the research, the newspapers in Winnipeg, Manitoba where I would have read the story are: The Winnipeg Free Press (now the Free Press) and the Winnipeg Sun. The national newspapers in Canada are the Globe & Mail and the National Post. ALL of these newspapers would have run the story and possibly editorials around the ethics of allowing Canadian taxpayers to foot the expensive bill for a foreign child's HIV medication.

During the 90s, the federal government in Canada was concerned about the national debt and underwent a severe cost cutting exercise, a lot of health care costs were passed on to the provinces and the funding mechanism was changed. It used to be that health care was funded on a per capita basis but in the 90s, the federal government gave provinces blocks of funding (block funding) and the provinces had the responsibility to spend it wisely on health care. Like, they got less money but more control over how to spend it. Federal governments have been dealing with provinces clamouring for more funding ever since and saying that if they want more funds, they have to commit to doing X, Y, and Z (improving outcomes) and the provinces have resisted.

I looked for keywords like: denied medical costs, HIV+, adoptive child, Manitoba, Health care and I searched for the years of 1995 to 2000, then 1990 to 1995. It HAD to be in those years. Earlier than that, I wasn't reading the newspaper (no interest) and in the years of 92-94 I was studying in the USA so I would not have seen the story in 92-94. I tried dropping "adoptive" and playing with the years but....

Additional places to look are reddit's r/winnipeg and r/manitoba, plus maybe r/disability? There's probably an HIV+ subreddit and also an AIDS subreddit. The challenge will be finding people who remember events from 30 years ago. If you have an HIV/AIDS clinic in your region, they *MIGHT* have heard of this story because the issue of covering medical costs for people who are HIV+/have AIDS is a huge ethics issue - or it used to be when medications were more expensive and insurance companies were playing games, denying people care and so on.

 

[Casket]

I spent 4 hours at the Winnipeg Public Library today and I couldn't find the stories on the topic of the Manitoba government wanting to deny permission for the family to adopt an HIV+ child due to the medical costs being $10,000 a month. The folks working at the reference desk couldn't help either. It's annoying because I 1,000% remember reading the story but I can't find any of the articles in the newspaper archives or with google.ca or wherever.

If you want to devote time to the research, the newspapers in Winnipeg, Manitoba where I would have read the story are: The Winnipeg Free Press (now the Free Press) and the Winnipeg Sun. The national newspapers in Canada are the Globe & Mail and the National Post. ALL of these newspapers would have run the story and possibly editorials around the ethics of allowing Canadian taxpayers to foot the expensive bill for a foreign child's HIV medication.

During the 90s, the federal government in Canada was concerned about the national debt and underwent a severe cost cutting exercise, a lot of health care costs were passed on to the provinces and the funding mechanism was changed. It used to be that health care was funded on a per capita basis but in the 90s, the federal government gave provinces blocks of funding (block funding) and the provinces had the responsibility to spend it wisely on health care. Like, they got less money but more control over how to spend it. Federal governments have been dealing with provinces clamouring for more funding ever since and saying that if they want more funds, they have to commit to doing X, Y, and Z (improving outcomes) and the provinces have resisted.

I looked for keywords like: denied medical costs, HIV+, adoptive child, Manitoba, Health care and I searched for the years of 1995 to 2000, then 1990 to 1995. It HAD to be in those years. Earlier than that, I wasn't reading the newspaper (no interest) and in the years of 92-94 I was studying in the USA so I would not have seen the story in 92-94. I tried dropping "adoptive" and playing with the years but....

Additional places to look are reddit's r/winnipeg and r/manitoba, plus maybe r/disability? There's probably an HIV+ subreddit and also an AIDS subreddit. The challenge will be finding people who remember events from 30 years ago. If you have an HIV/AIDS clinic in your region, they *MIGHT* have heard of this story because the issue of covering medical costs for people who are HIV+/have AIDS is a huge ethics issue - or it used to be when medications were more expensive and insurance companies were playing games, denying people care and so on.

Thank you very much for going all out of the way and doing the research even though a long time had passed.