rawTOP

For the record - Neg2Poz was banned for being repeatedly and consistently disagreeable. Yes, there were two issues that were the proverbial straws that broke the camel's back, but my opinion of him had been going south for a while. And one of the two issues involved getting involved in an unjustified fight with one of this site's biggest sponsors who happens to also be one of my best friends. People who start talking shit about my friends and sponsors will get banned. [in case you're wondering, the incident involved a member who got a promo email from Raw Fuck Club offering 50% off. He followed the link, but chose the full-price plan rather than the 50% off plan. He contacted customer service and asked for a full refund. Since he had already watched 45 minutes of video they just gave him the difference in price between the full price plan and the discount plan. Then he comes here an publicly accuses them with fraud. Neg2Poz started defending the guy who picked the fight. They both got banned when the situation was clarified and they continued to say it was fraud (when it clearly wasn't).] It was not the first time Neg2Poz was banned either - he was banned early on for spamming the site. This site does not belong to him, he has no "free speech" here. I own the site and I set the rules. If you can't live by those rules you need to go elsewhere. You guys are pretty good with each other. And I'm fine with someone having a bad day - god knows I have them. But, like it or not, I have to police what goes on here. If I feel the site will be better without someone, then I ban them. My site, my rules...

I'll put it here, but with the proviso that this this direction in the story is going to be scrapped... In the final version he's not quite so much of a piece of meat... I also haven't spell checked or really proof-read this version... ... It only took 10 days before Jamal got the fuck flu. During that time I didn't let any other guys fuck him. I wanted him to know without any doubt who his poz daddy was. While I was the only one who fucked him, he wasn't the only guy I was fucking. There were a few "neg / safe sex only" guys who hit me up and I didn't want to miss the chance to breed them. I knew Jamal wanted me all to himself so to break him of that hope I made him sit in the closet and listen to me fucking the other guys. (He needed to know his place.) I also told him things would change for him once he got fuck flu… That I planned on whoring him out. "Whatever you want daddy…" He just wanted to please me and he'd been whored out for more than half his life already - so it wasn't a big deal. At least this time around the person whoring him out didn't despise him… On his 10th day there he woke up all sweaty and hot - he running a pretty high fever. We both knew what that meant. I got online and started looking for guys to fuck him. My goal was to get as many loads in him as possible - both poz and neg. The poz loads could give him new strains, and who knows - maybe he could infect the neg tops? I set up party listings for a gangbang that night and every night for the next week (I said they were 18th birthday gangbangs). I also made it clear that guys could stop by any time to breed him. Needless to say a hot little fuck hole that just turned 18 who wanted as many loads as possible was a hot commodity. 6 guys stopped by during the day and gave him a load, and another 14 guys came to the gangbang that night. A few asked why he was so hot and sweaty. I sorta deflected the question, but a couple asked "is he going through fuck flu"? When they found out he was in the middle of converting that totally turned them on - they went back to fucking him and really pounded him hard. Given that there wasn't a whole lot of planning time the first day he "only" got 20 loads. When he went to bed that night he thought he had been fucked a lot - it was more than he'd ever been fucked before - and on top of it he felt like shit - pretty much as soon as his head hit the pillow he was asleep. He had no clue what was in store for him the next few days… In the more perverted circles word spread that an 18 year old was getting gangbanged while going through fuck flu. But even the more vanilla guys got into it. To them a hot little 18 year old was taking load after load… You don't have to be a hardcore pervert to find that hot. On day 2 of his fuck flu he got 32 loads. Day 3 he got 47 loads. On Day 4 it started getting crazy - the whole day felt like a gangbang - he got 62 loads that day. He was getting practical no sleep. One of my buddies even volunteered to stay with him so I could get some sleep. It finally died down around 3am, but then there were guys wanting to fuck him at 6:30 on their way to work. It was like that for days - at least 3 or 4 guys every hour - sometimes there would be a line and he'd take 6 or more loads in an hour. He did that about 20 hours a day. You do the math - he was getting 100 loads a day. If he had had the will to protest he didn't - he was just too tired with the fuck flu. But complaining just wasn't in Jamal's nature - he was too submissive to complain. There was a point when I finally had just had enough of the huge whirlwind and things were dying down a bit anyway - only 2 or 3 guys were coming every hour It had been 9 days of nearly constant fucking at this point and we guessed he had probably taken maybe 700 loads. We took a breather for a few days. His fuck flu was starting to abate and he told me it felt like he was coming out of a fog. "Did I really take that much dick? It felt like I've been getting fucked constantly for weeks." "Yeah boy - you really did take that much dick. It was hot seeing your ass constantly overflow with cum." "On the one hand it hurt to get fucked so much, but on the other hand I was so tired and weak half the time I was too tired to care about the pain." During the gangbang craziness a few guys had confided in me that they too were poz and not on meds - I made note of their names and numbers and they were the only other guys who fucked him the next couple weeks. About 4 or 5 guys fucked him ever day, which was still more than he'd ever been fucked in Philly. After feeling better for about a week Jamal started getting flu-like symptoms again. I was sorta wondering if that would happen. My suspicion was confirmed a month or so later when we went to see the doctor. The found that Jamal had two strains of HIV-1 plus HIV-2. The second fuck flu was the secondary strains kicking in. As I write this a while later Jamal still hasn't gone on meds. When he does I wonder if any of this three strains are meds-resistant? Time will tell I guess… After all the craziness things settled down quite a bit. For a while there he was getting fucked by 3 to 5 guys every day and a couple times a week he'd go out to sex parties to take loads and bring home an ass full of cum for me to felch and fuck. I gotta say it's pretty sweet to have an 18 year old present you with an ass full of cum. I am one happy top. He was getting about 50 loads a week - sometimes more. That went on for two or three months at which point I wanted to put him to better use. I had him set up an escort profile on Rentboy.com and as he started getting the hang of it I set goals for him. He's gotta make about $400/day - actually $2500/week. If he makes his goal he's allowed to get fucked by other (non-paying) guys. He just loves to get fucked so he goes at it with a lot of passion. Sometimes he'll service 2 or 3 johns in a day. One week he managed to make $6,000… Given the nature of the work the money is all cash. When he comes home from a trick he just hands the entire amount to me. He's happy that I'm happy. All he wants in exchange is to be taken care of. I do take a good chunk of the money - to cover his food, housing, clothes, etc. But what he doesn't know is I've saved a lot of it in a safe deposit box. If anything ever happens to me - he'll be able to take care of himself. I had shot some video of Jamal getting fucked. Both during his fuck flu gangbang period and [Not finished... Stay tuned for the real version two...]

It was going too dark and heavy handed.

Honestly, it would turn me on to be a poz top and convert guys (either bug chasers or guys who don't ask status - lying/stealthing isn't really my thing). But at the same time I'm not exactly in a hurry to convert. If it happens, it happens, I'll make the most of the situation, but the health implications stop me from being a bug chaser (it would be different if I were a bottom). My other fantasy is to have a full-time "boy"/"slave". If I were single (or if my bf were as piggy as I am) I'd have one by now, but the whole 3-way relationship thing makes the idea of having a boy pretty complicated. My bf comes first, so I wait on that fantasy as well... Maybe one of these days - maybe even later this year - who knows?

You probably haven't confirmed your e-mail, so you're not a full member yet.

I wrote part two and then decided I didn't like where I was taking the plot... I've got it rewritten in my head, but need to find the time to type it up.

I know what you mean. My bf is Asian. He's with me in part because I'm not a rice queen (I have a slight preference for Latinos). He's 4th generation on one side - not sure I could deal with 1st generation. But there are all these pasty older white guys who gawk at guys like my bf. Thing is, as soon as he opens his mouth and shows he's intelligent and well-spoken they sorta lose interest. They want the stereotypical submissive Asian guy who can barely speak English - and he's anything but that kind of Asian.

You had part 2 and part 4... where are the other parts?

Count me in for one of the older tops...

So PORTaURINAL - how many loads of piss did you get? I know you've been thinking of taking loads of cum too - get any of those (up your ass)?

You get the warning once per browser session. So the solution is to keep your browser open. At least with Firefox, it can be open with other web pages in other tabs. But if you completely close your browser, the next time you view Breeding Zone you'll get the popup on the first page you view.

PLEASE don't use dildos... I hate bottoms who use dildos a lot - you can tell it when you fuck them - it just doesn't feel as good - and visually their asses look abused and tired. Which would you rather have - a dildo or a real dick? I'd suggest trying butt plugs. IMHO, they're something more bottoms should use. I wish a bottom would show up at my place with a butt plug in him. If you've been wearing a butt plug for a couple hours, when you pull it out your hole won't completely close up for quite a while. An open hole is sorta hot... Because it clenched around the butt plug it will be tight, but not as tight as if you didn't have it in. The slight be more looseness might be enough to get you over your problem. Back when I was in college and versatile I used to like butt plugs. I'd put them in and go to class. It was sorta hot walking around with something big and substantial up your butt. You knew, but no one else did... Do be careful the butt plus is completely smooth - I had one that had a defect - sort of a slightly sharp bump. I sometimes wonder if that's how I got a tear down there (which is a big part of what turned me into a top).

US law isn't based on Common Law - informed by it, but our system is generally different. In the US people aren't accountable for what they do when they're under "extreme emotional distress" (like when they're in the middle of getting beaten). No one here wants to be assaulted, so we give a pass to people who are defending themselves - even if they go a bit too far.

lol - Though it would be funny if he had fathered lots of kids in the process. Can you imagine 50 or 100 kids from one guy?

All done

I'll take my "feeble-minded analogies" over purposely deceitful "research" any day.

Because, as you know, I have other things that keep me busy. I care, but not that much...

IMHO, it's not helpful to quote or discuss deeply flawed studies where you can't really tell the truth of the matter. It just confuses people and muddies the discussion when you don't see a clear picture.

Sorry, but that study has serious problems. The biggest one is that they didn't spell out the characteristics of the people who died. I've seen other studies that say that when you look at just the people who actually die of AIDS you see that the vast majority of them 1) didn't start ARVs until their CD4 dropped below 200 and/or 2) had drug abuse or other issues that meant that they didn't take their meds consistently once they did start treatment. The first part of the study where "early" is defined as CD4 between 350 and 500 - we're in agreement there - that seems like a reasonable time to start to me. It's the second part of the study where I see problems. They should have sorted the participants into 3 groups, not 2. By mixing the people with really low CD4s with people with reasonable CD4s they're giving a distorted picture. Notice that they don't give mean CD4 counts for each group - they only give median and inter quartile ranges. That means you can't tell how dire the lowest quartile is - that could be where a large part of the deaths are. The other thing which is a huge red flag is the 95% confidence intervals - with up to 9,000 people in the study they should have been a lot smaller. Something fishy is going on there. That indicates to me that they're using the unusually large sample size to help them tell a story that isn't really there. On top of that - they only know the cause of death for 16% of those who died. It could be random bad luck that's causing the deaths. If, as other studies have shown, poverty and drug addiction keep people off ARVs - then it could just be that poor people are more likely to die. I mean, they do some analysis of how other factors like Hep C and IV drug use factor in - but unless they can tie the deaths back to HIV in some way, it really weakens the results. As they mention, this was not a randomized trial - there could be a variety of cofactors that determined when the person chose to start ARV treatment. This isn't tinfoil hat... Very particular details are missing from the study. It baffles me how they could not discuss the characteristics of the people who died. That's the outcome variable. Comparing people who dies to people who didn't die is far more important than looking at the differences between two arbitrarily defined groups. I've heard it said that numbers don't lie, people lie with numbers. The results of that study are crafted in a very particular way to give the message that the drug companies want told. First, they wanted to get people on ARVs when they were in the 350-500 CD4 range - no problem there. But then they went further - to try to get people on drugs years before they may actually need them. I'll end by listing the drug company affiliations of the researchers - they speak volumes... "Consulting & Lecture Fees" are given to people who market drugs to other doctors. I know, I've helped recruit and pay the doctors. Bottom line - this is a drug company study passed off as legitimate research and you accepted it as fact. This is exactly what I've been ranting about in this thread.

[This story is a complete fantasy. Who knows maybe I'll have a slave like this - he'd sorta be my ideal slave…] Jamal started life with things stacked against him. His mom was a prostitute who usually had johns fucking her several times a day. She always took her birth control but with all that cum in her pussy some of it managed to get past the birth control and she got pregnant with Jamal. Being pregnant was the last thing she wanted. Some guys liked fucking pregnant women, but most didn't and it meant she'd earn nothing for a couple weeks around the birth. Jamal was unwanted from day one… Jamal's mom had been pretty once, but after living in poverty getting fucked by thousands of guys, her beauty was "faded" (to put it nicely). She should have lived a better life but somehow things always went bad for her. It didn't help that everyone in her building knew she was a whore. A couple of them would routinely break into her apartment, rob her and force her to give them a free fuck. She tried to hide her money but half the time they'd find where she had hidden the money. She just couldn't get ahead and Jamal was just the latest of a heap of problems that she called her life. Needless to say, as the bastard child of a poor prostitute Jamal was pretty much the textbook definition of "disadvantaged". He was a cute kid - he had gotten his Mom's good looks. His mom was mulatto (black mother, white father) and based on how Jamal looked it seems like his daddy had been Latino of some sort. He was this wonderful light brown color - like the perfect suntan 360 days a year. His hair was coarse, but not kinky… All in all he was a hot little blatino boy, but looks don't count for much when everyone knows your mom gets fucked for a living. He was constantly getting beaten up by his peers, and because he was a little kid there was no way he could fight back. The few times he tried he lost pretty badly. The funny part was he knew some of their fathers fucked his mom - he could be the brother of the guys who were beating him up - but he never said that to their face - it would only make the guys beat him harder. There was a hierarchy to Jamal's world - he was on the bottom and everyone else was above him - it's just how things were and he accepted it. It wasn't just the kids in the neighborhood who'd beat Jamal. His mother had the bad habit of reminding Jamal that she wished he'd never been born. Whenever he did something to displease her she's smack him. If he tried to stop her, it would set her off even more. There were times when she'd just snap and start wailing on him - it was like she tried to soothe the frustrations of her miserable life by using him as a punching bag. There were teachers and counselors at school that were supposed to figure out what was going on but most of them didn't care. Plus his mom told him if he ever reported her his life would get a lot worse - not better. So he just put up with it an hid the bruises as best he could from people like teachers. Abuse was part of his life and as far as he could tell it would always be that way. The question of who his father was was one that always haunted Jamal. He used to fantasize about who his father was. His dream was that he could figure out who his father was, and even though he was his bastard son and would never be the equal of his legitimate siblings, he would at least know where he belonged. It was the feeling that he had no home, no safe place, that really hit him the hardest, and he knew even if he found his father that wouldn't necessarily be his home either - but at least he'd have something concrete to fantasize about. Jamal learned early on that he couldn't stop the abuse but if he kept his head down and did things like avoid eye contact, it helped a lot. When he had to interact with someone it was best if he just tried to give them what they wanted or make them happy in some way. Submissiveness was his survival strategy. Even when someone would start beating him - it was better if he didn't resist - if he just took it without complaint. Jamal was a broken and damaged kid. The only part of his life that seemed to go well was school. It was a crappy school where the teachers didn't really care, but Jamal came to realize that he was actually pretty smart. That, and his willingness to please, earned him good grades. He was pretty much a straight A student - not that that made much of a difference in his rough and tumble world. It just meant some of the kids would force him do to papers and then beat him up if the paper he wrote didn't get an A. To make matters worse his mom just kept telling him he was worthless - that brains didn't matter - that he'd get nowhere 'cause he wasn't much of a man - he was so small and submissive he'd never amount to much of anything. So even the one thing where he could have gotten some self-worth was taken away from him… When Jamal was 8 some of his mom's clients expressed an interest in him. His mom thought it was disgusting, but she also saw dollar signs. As much as she despised "faggots", to her it was free money. Even with her trying to keep it on the down-low (she didn't want to be known as the mother of a faggot), it wasn't long before Jamal was out-earning her, but it only made Jamal less of a man in her eyes. He was her meal ticket and she despised him for how he earned his money. Without going into detail, Jamal was pretty much perfectly suited for his new "profession". He was submissive and willing to put up with just about anything to get by. And his desire to please let the johns think they weren't really abusing him and the men coming back for repeat visits. Of course it wasn't long before the kids found out that Jamal's mom was whoring him out - and that just made things worse with him. He'd come home with new bruises every day. And when his "clients" saw the bruises they treated him worse. It was cyclical - the sex just got rougher and rougher as time went on… The abuse just never seemed to have an end. Jamal stopped seeing his body as _his_ body - it became a shell he lived in that other people used as they saw fit. He felt hollow and yearned for acceptance and love - but he didn't even know what that meant. He just knew it revolved around one word - "daddy" - the one thing he'd never had. Jamal contacted me a few months before his 18th birthday. He found my blog and told me he thought I was the perfect daddy top. He'd send me pictures of himself. I had to delete some of them immediately 'cause he shouldn't be sending pics like that, but he was hot. The best part was that he didn't understand how hot he was - he saw himself as pretty much worthless. He had good grades in school, but his school was so bad there was no way he could compete in college against people who had gone to better schools. And with the exception of his teachers (who largely just took him for granted), everyone around him despised him and told him he was a piece of shit. While 17 is legal in New York, he lived in Philadelphia and I wasn't about to bring a minor across state lines, so we just chatted online. After a month or so he opened up to me and started showing me the bruises, but I couldn't really do anything. He begged me not to report his mother and given that it had been going on for years I figured he could stand a couple more months of it. He didn't even tell me enough about him to do a report. He told me his name was Jamal and he lived in Philadelphia, but that was all I knew. We kept chatting and I could tell I was becoming a bit of a daddy figure to him. It was cute. At the same time it sorta turned me on to hear how he put up with physical and sexual abuse without complaint. It was just his life and he expected it. It was no big deal to him. A couple days before he turned 18 I tried to reach him online but he was wasn't around. The next day - same thing. Being offline so long was usual for him. The morning of his birthday he still wasn't online and I started getting worried. I wondered if the abuse finally went really bad. Then in the middle of the afternoon my doorbell rang, I opened the door and there he was. I didn't remember telling him my address, but somehow managed to find me. It was one of the hottest days in August. He was sorta sunburned and incredibly dirty. But he still looked incredibly hot. It didn't hurt that he had almost nothing on - no shirt, just these thin little running shorts which clung to every curve in his body 'cause he was dripping with sweat and his shorts were soaked. It was also clear he didn't have underwear on - his thin wet shorts were showing every detail of his half-hard dick. I could actually see his dick twitching and growing pretty quickly. In a matter of seconds it got so hard it started tenting his shorts and he was big enough that the head started poking out under the bottom of his shorts. "Can I come in?" He was so submissive - he barely looked up at me - mostly just stared at the ground. "Of course boy…" (I didn't want my neighbors to see a half naked little boy standing at my door with a hardon). As soon as he was inside the door he dropped to the floor and got into a little submissive ball and started kissing my feet. He begged me to let him stay. Said he'd be a good boy and I could whore him out just like his mom had - he'd earn his keep and wouldn't be any trouble. "Please daddy, please… My mom will know I'm gone by now and she'll beat me pretty bad if I go back. I always delete our chat history - they'll never know I'm here. I'll be good, I promise." I'll do anything you want daddy, please daddy, please… Please let me be your boy… I'll be a good boy, I promise…" He was having verbal diarrhea offering everything he could think of to get me to let him stay. I just stood there for a little bit and let him beg. "…If you want to beat me, I can take it… Anything you want daddy… Please…" I didn't really respond to his request. He was filthy dirty and I just wanted to start with getting him clean. "Follow me boy" and I led him up to the bathroom and he followed quietly - he knew the time for talking was over. "Take a bath boy - you're filthy." "I'm sorry sir, I walked here." "You WALKED here?" I said incredulously. "You walked here from Philadephia?" That's like 100 miles. "Yes sir. I went to the park near my house a couple days ago just to get away from my mom for a few hours. Some kids started beating me up. They ripped my shirt sir. I thought about how I'd be 18 in a couple days. I just had enough and wanted to get away. I need a fresh start sir. I just started walking and didn't go back. I didn't have any money on me, so I figured I'd just walk. You're the only person who I thought might take me so I headed toward you. I'm good at remembering details and while a back I had figured out who you were and what your address was. Luckily I remembered the address correctly." No wonder he was dirty - he'd been walking for 3 days to get here. His shirt was gone 'cause it had been torn by the guys who beat him up. He had used it as a rag and to keep sun off him, but had finally discarded it when he got to NYC. And most remarkably he had walked 100 miles in cheap flip flops. His feat were a mess, but as he bathed in the hot tub the layers of dirt came off him. When he was done this cute little boy emerged from the water. He was adorable and there was no way I could say no to him... There was one thing I meant to tell Jamal before now, but had just never gotten around to it. I had converted a couple months earlier. Not exactly sure how it happened, but I had what seemed like the fuck flu and when I went and got the test it came back poz. I hadn't gone on meds yet - I was still waiting to see how my body would respond. Here was an 18 year old begging me to "be my boy" - on his 18th birthday no less. He had no clue what he was asking for, but given his life up to this point I figured he probably wouldn't care. Being pozzed by me was better than his life back in Philadelphia. I didn't say anything about that and I didn't really tell him I planned on granting his wish to stay with me and be my boy. When the water drained out of the tub I got out the the spray nozzle for douching and asked if he knew what it was. "Yes daddy, my mom has me use something like that…" I told him I'd be in the bedroom when he was done. 5 minutes later my naked little boy came to the bedroom and climbed into bed with me (since he hadn't eaten in two days douching didn't take long). He was so small and frail - just 5' 2" and barely over 100 pounds. I could see why fighting back was never an option for him. Even though he hadn't eaten in 3 days, but he wasn't asking for food - he was so submissive he wouldn't even make that simple demand of me - it wasn't his place. I think he thought he needed to earn his meal. He didn't even make much eye contact with me. He just got on his belly, ass up, looked the other way and said "it's yours daddy…" and spread his ass cheeks. Damn that was a fine ass! I grabbed the lube, lubed up my dick, and pushed into his sweet boyish hole - no foreplay, no tenderness - we both knew he was just a fuckhole. My big PA hurt him as it went in, but he put up with it. God that was a sweet hole… Silky smooth and still pretty tight despite all the use it had seen. I came on like the third stroke, but I knew that was just the first of many loads - I'd last longer on the next load. I kept my dick in him and slowly pumped his hole. It was so warm and tight - and now well lubed with my poz cum - it felt incredible. After 20 minutes of slowly pumping his ass in almost complete silence I got my second wind. This time I fucked longer and harder. In fact it was a pretty rough fuck. I pounded him for 15+ minutes and my PA was really tearing him up. I started seeing a little blood on my dick and I knew there was no way he would be neg after this fuck. Finally my second load came. And I collapsed on top him in a wet sweaty mess. As we lay there with two loads of my high viral load poz cum in his ass I asked him if he'd ever been tested for HIV. "No sir - I haven't been tested. I've been fucked a lot, but mostly by straight guys, so I can't really say what my status is." We spent the rest of the day in bed - other than getting out to have a bite to eat (he was ravenous). I pumped two more loads in him that night and one the next morning. I wanted to know what my boy's HIV status was so the next morning I took him down to the free clinic and had him tested. The test came back neg - we were both a little surprised. I guess the guys his mom lined up really were straight - it helps to not get fucked. It sorta turned me on that he had gotten a neg test result while there were 5 loads of highly charged cum percolating in his guts. When we got home he asked me "Was neg the result you wanted daddy?" I told him neg was perfect. I put him face-down on the living room floor and fucked him again… I could tell the weight of me pounding into him and the hardness of the floor under him hurt him, but he didn't seem to mind the pain. As I was about to cum, I said "You want me to be your daddy forever, right?" "Yes daddy, I've wanted that for a long time - even before I contacted you." "Good boy… Take my poz load boy… I just converted and I'm not on meds - those loads last night and the ones I'm going to keep pumping into you… They're going to make you mine - I'll be with you forever boy…" It was like a curtain opened and everything changed for him. He flipped around, put his legs in the air and shoved my cummy cock back in his hole, and then spontaneously pulled me towards him and kissed me. He had the biggest grin on his face. He had found his daddy… [to be continued...]

You just called the chief of neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering incompetent... Being German, perhaps you're not aware of MSKCC's significance... It, and Mayo Clinic, are the two top cancer hospitals in the US. It's easily one of the top 5 cancer hospitals in the world. And the guy was the head of neurosurgery at one of those hospitals. He was not incompetent. He just did an unnecessary neurosurgery on me and should have questioned my neurologist more carefully before doing it. But given that my neurologist was the chair or neurology, he didn't question her request for the biopsy. I'd actually like to see the study. The issue with large sample sizes is that everything becomes statistically significant. At that point you have to ask yourself if it's meaningfully significant. If it just makes a small but positive improvement in life expectancy, I personally would prefer to live fewer years with less chance of drug side effects. That's a perfectly reasonable decision for me to make and doctors should spell out the choice clearly for patients. I'm done arguing the other points. I've pretty much covered everything that I can think of saying...

In 1994 I watched as a nurse administered some incredibly powerful medications to my HIV positive boyfriend in the wrong order. I had been told by the doctor the order was important and questioned the nurse, but she insisted she was right and I was wrong. I didn't stop her and when I woke up in the morning my boyfriends heart was racing - it had been racing for hours. The doctor said he had essentially run a marathon in his sleep. That incident was the beginning of the end for him. He never got back to anything close to healthy and died a couple months later. I have to ask myself if I had stood up to the nurse and insisted a doctor confirm the order whether he'd still be alive today. In 2003 my friends said my neurosurgeon (the chief of neurosurgery at MSKCC) looked deeply disturbed when he finished doing my second "brain tumor" biopsy. We're convinced something went wrong and my life was in danger - all for an operation that wasn't really necessary. My brother-in-law is now a ghost of the vibrant, fun-loving person I looked up to as a kid and I suspect his medical issues are due to over aggressive medical treatment. I've worked on the marketing of drugs that caused such serious problems that they're now banned by the FDA. I saw first hand how pharma companies identified, recruited and trained "thought leaders" to get those drugs accepted. I've helped organize the dinner meetings and ski resort vacations to influence those thought leaders. And I've seen in my own experience how reluctant doctors are to question those thought leaders. Exactly how many people do I need to see put at risk and hurt before I say "enough" and have the right to question doctors? I don't have to be a scientist to use common sense and demand that medical authority figures genuinely do what's best for me and the people I love. A one-size-fits-all approach is becoming the dominant treatment plan for HIV and one size doesn't fit all.

You know me... I'm far too much of a hard-nosed New Yorker to believe that medicine is irrelevant. At the same time having a doc tell you to go on meds for 20 to 60 years is a decision that requires close examination and people shouldn't be criticized for saying "I'll wait". Honestly, I'm not poz and if I became poz I'd research things more carefully and make my own decision. Everything I've learned over the last 25 years tells me that going on meds quickly is not something I'd want to do personally. I can't say whether it's 200 or 350. I know I would be more concerned about sustained trends than I would be about a temporary spike/drop. I'd want to see repeated tests at the threshold level to go on meds. Honestly though - I've been around the block enough to know where those doctors who say "under 200" are coming from. They come from the same school of thought as the social worker who observed that the less you do, the better the outcome. They've been around long enough to know the dangers of aggressive treatment. I respect that. And I'd bet those same docs aren't dogmatic about what they advise - they lay things out and let the patient figure out what's right for them. To me, that's good medicine. I've seen to many "top doctors" do stupid things - things that hurt, rather than help their patients. I've seen that the average doctor will refuse to contradict the opinion of "top doctors". Finding "the right doctor" is like finding a needle in the haystack - more often than not you don't wind up with the right doctor - you wind up with one that's just "good enough" (even when you think you have a good doctor). I've seen bad doctors over and over and over. Bad doctors are the rule, not the exception. It's one of those "fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me" scenarios. I now think for myself and on major stuff I stop and consider their recommendation and see if it's right for me. Your tin foil hat mom is actually close to the truth. Vaccines are one of the leading theories for the dramatic rise of autism. However sensible folk aren't against vaccines all together - instead they want to tweak the timing of vaccines. Some vaccines can be given a little later, when the child's body is a bit more mature and that delay means there's far less side effects. Case and point - I went to military doctors my entire life. When I was a teen it came out that a certain vaccine could be dangerous if given to children too early. My mom looked at my vaccine record and saw that military doctors knew (or suspected) the danger 10+ years before the general public and had delayed giving me that particular vaccine. That's not tin foil hat - it's prudent medicine. Of course.

Getting second opinions from people at the same institution is generally a bad idea. For second and third opinions it's best to go to a doctor who is completely unconnected to the original doctor. I've seen it in action - if they know and respect the other doctor they won't contradict the diagnosis - even when it's wrong.