One of our readers sent in an interesting article today regarding the Swine Flu and HIV.  The media is hyping up this Swine flu thing bigger than the end of the world and I am sure there are many in the GLBT community panicking right now.  We try and find things on this blog that are real issues with the GLBT community and this is something that may be of concern as the news is breaking with new Swine flu cases and deaths everyday.

The article sent to us is from The Body (thebody.com).  They basically said that there is no need to panic if you have HIV and are worried about contracting the Swine Flu anymore than someone without HIV or AIDS.  You are not a special case and there is no emergent need to take any special precaution.

I’ve been reassuring my patients that they don’t really have to think about this flu differently than anyone else. And that’s in part because most of my patients are on HIV treatment and have undetectable viral loads and have decent CD4 counts. So for them, it really is not a special issue. It’s an issue we all have to be concerned about.

There was also a good question asked if the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza would interact with current HIV meds:

No, the drug can be used with antiretrovirals. There are no significant drug interactions. It can be used with the drugs we commonly use to treat or prevent pneumonia. So that really should not be a concern, but do keep in mind that if you were to develop flu and then develop pneumonia — of course by then, I hope you would be under the care of a doctor — that Bactrim [co-trimoxazole] may not be the right drug. So Bactrim’s a good drug for pneumocystis, but not a great drug for the types of pneumonia that might complicate flu.

I actually read two really good articles on the Swine Flu today one from Bottom line magazine that said to take some immune boosting supplements.  Keeping your immune system strong at a time like this is vital to staying away from this Swine Flu outbreak.  Actually turning down the TV to something other than Swine Flu news might also boost your immune system.  The media hype may not be too good either!

Some natural health fighting ways for ANYONE to stay away from the Swine Flu are to take Selenium, Vitamin C and D, and Lomatium dissectum, a member of the parsley family.   Selenium is the essential trace mineral is a valuable antioxidant that prevents cell damage from free radicals.

Selenium helps the immune system recognize viruses and block them from entering cells, explains Dr. Rubman. He recommends a dose of 400 micrograms (mcg) to 500 mcg a day divided into three parts — that is about four times the usual.

This doctor also advises to wash your hands a lot and to make sure you sneeze into a napkin or tissue instead of your own germ filled hands.  Another thing that caught my eye is the concoction he made up with Red Hot Chili peppers:

Another of Dr. Rubman’s flu-fighting favorites is a spicy tea concocted from echinacea, goldenseal, slippery elm bark and just a touch of the red-hot pepper capsicum. Echinacea, goldenseal and capsicum team up to fight off germs, while slippery elm allows the tea to coat the back of the throat, where viruses are most likely to take hold.

Here’s how to make it: At your local health-food store, purchase one-half ounce of powdered goldenseal root… one-half ounce of powdered echinacea root (not the whole plant)… two ounces of slippery elm bark powder… and one teaspoon of capsicum.

At home, put ingredients in a brown paper bag or plastic baggie, close tightly and shake. Transfer the contents to a screw-top jar. Give this jar a shake each time you use it in order to remix the ingredients.

To make the tea, pour one cup of very hot water into a mug over one-half teaspoon of the powder.

Maybe its safer to be prepared for this outbreak or we are all reacting too crazily and panicing.  A part of me thinks this is mostly media ratings hype and they could not have begged for something more dramatic to talk about.  I mean they asked Paris Hilton about it (TMZ) but showed it on the local Fox News.  Closing down schools and quarantining people is way out of hand.  When they are quarantining people they have taken things too far.  One thing we must realize is we have messed with nature so much that things like this will happen and we better get used to big challenges – we have treated animals so badly with hormones and made plants/seeds hybrid (thanks monsanto) and put so many pesticides into the ground among loosing so much of our natural surroundings.  We all might want to think about a stockpile of food and water for any kind of emergency where we are not able to go into public.

What if you catch Swine Flu?  There is a natural remedy that the big pharmaceutical companies do not tell you about:Classical Homeopathy (Medical Guides to Complementary and Alternative Medicine.)

We plan to do some research on this subject and bring you all of the top gay iPhone Applications but until then lets bring you some that we do know about.  Everyone I know has an Iphone these days.  At least most of my friends, co-workers, and classmates.  I have been holding out for the new Palm Pre from Sprint and hoping that it will have some gay applications as well for these.

Here are some popular iPhone Apps:

1.  Grindr – At GetGrindr.com you can download the app to meet guys near you on your iPhone.  Sort of like a Manhunt.net for the iPhone addicts.

2. The Gay Community App – launched in Sydney, Australia earlier this year has generated a buzz around the world.  This is a unique iPhone App allowing users to chat and meet like-minded people in their communities they live in or travel to.  It works by using the iPhones GPS and navigation to let them know whats going on in the local gay scene, make new friends, and possibly find a hottie near you.

You can find this download for the iPhone at gaycommunityapp.com or in the Apple iTunes App Store.  One of the neat things this app has is that it has a Gaydar search listing other app users by distance from your location or from one that you specify.  Facebook and twitter style profile updates.  There is a buddy list to keep track of people and location mapping system via Google Maps.

3.  G.I.R.L. Dance Radio - I at first thought this was a lesbian radio station only but I guess it means gay as in all gays and just an acronym for the G.I.R.L.  But if you want an Iphone application free with streaming of hot dance music you should download the Gay Internet Radio Live app which gives you a 128k and 64k stream.  They even have an instant feedback link to email station DJ’s.  The song information is displayed on your iPhone on each track so you can buy it when you get home and goto MasterBeat or from your phone.  This is great for working out and not having to hear the same dance playlist you always had.

4. Gaycities – iPhone app to rate gay-friendly bars, hotels, clubs, and beaches worldwide.

5.  MyGayGo – similar to the GayCities app which lets you locate gay businesses near you from publishers of Frontiers and IN.

6. Yelp – not a gay app but you can add all your gay friends on here and get the best restaurants in the United States when you travel.  Does not work yet for France where you damn well need it.  I had one of the worst Mexican food dishes there (hey they told me it was Tex-Mex I was a “tourist”)!

7.  Pride – free app that turns the screen into a rainbow flag that fades away into the word PRIDE.  For those of you who get amused by screen savers and 80s videos.  Seems like you could do this with a Nokia phone why need an iPhone?

8. Skout is a personals site offering a iphone app you can use on your new iPhone 3GS.  You can download it free at boyahoy.com.

I hope they develop some of these same applications for the new Palm Pre coming out in May.  The Pre is set to be the next best thing to the iPhone for those of us Sprint users.

Updated iPhone apps

The front page of AOL news today linked off to some blog that asked if America would vote for a gay American Idol.  They even featured a poll asking if people would vote for a gay American Idol and a poll asking if Adam Lambert is gay.  Seriously?  They act as if their has never been a gay idol before.  And I do not mean from the TV show American Idol.  We all know Clay Aiken and others almost made it to the Idol.  I doubt Ruben Studdard won because Clay was gay acting it was more likely the psychology of people thinking others were calling in for Clay so they did not bother… but who knows.

And as for gay idols there have been many in America.  Come to think of it when you think of music and acting almost the higher percentage is gay.  So why are the talking heads like Bill O’Reilly blubbering that its shocking that Adam Lambert could be gay.  Big deal he had some pics online of him making out with other guys on Myspace or some social network.  Who cares? I never knew there was a law against making out.

The media is so set on shocking people and trying out out people.  We should be focused on the quality of the talent and not the reputation from the media.  Of course what else will people like Bill O’Reilly do for his ratings if he can’t diss on gays or MSNBC.

Adam Lambert’s Myspace is private so you can’t peek inside unless he adds you as a friend and it seems he has not even signed in since February.  His being gay is no ones business but some of us gays want to know because it does mention single on his profile :).

Adam is the best thing that has happened to American Idol in a long time.  I Tivo the show each night and would be highly disappointed if he got voted off somehow.  He brings talent to the show of someone with creativity we do not see often and he is 27 years old.  Not only would it be nice for a gay person to win assuming hes gay but it would be nice for someone in their higher age group to win.

His favorite artists include Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Pink.  Three divas that are the best things to happen to music.  When he came on stage to do the Mad World song it was like Elvis had walked on stage.  He is such a great performer and I look forward to next week.

Is Adam Lambert Gay?  Judge for yourself.  Life has mystery for a reason.  It’s shocking to me that people search more about peoples personal lives than their actual talent such as their videos perfoming.

There were thousands of books removed from the sales rankings at Amazon.com mostly due to a new computer program.  Most of the titles seem to be gay and lesbian books such as Heather Has Two Mommies, a book by Ellen Degeneres, The Dictionary of Homophobia, Brokeback Mountain, and many more.  Amazon claims they are not censoring out gay and lesbian books but some have their doubts because they continued to rank the heterosexually-themed books with explicit sexual content including Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds and the graphic novel Lost Girls by Alan Moore.

Has Amazon turned into the new Wal-Mart when it comes to censoring music and books?   Amazon claims this is a computer glitch and all of the books will be re-listed in the top sales rankings.  If we see anything happen like this again we need to investigate the situation more and evaluate if a major boycott of Amazon needs to take place.  Until we find out more on the situation you should get your books from gay friendly bookstores in your local cities.  It is a shame so many historic gay bookstores have went out of business such as the Crossroads in Dallas and the Oscar Wilde Bookshop closed down just last month.  We have got to support our gay neighborhoods and bookstores or they will close down and who will look out for our rights then?

You can still buy most of these books at Amazon.com but the high sales come from them being rated higher.   Publications can rarely survive if they have no rankings.

Maybe the organic air is from their new Antartacia store opening but they are now selling bottles for only $6.99.  I just got my friend worked up over this before he figured out it was an April Fools Joke.  I told someone earlier that I was on my way to buy this new organic air from Whole foods.  He said it was not practical and asked me if I would be wearing a mask attached to a tank saying there was no way to fill a room with air bought from a store.  Very true and the fact that a few squirts of clean air in the nose would do nothing compared to what we breathe the rest of the day.

OK, but what about the new store opening in a place where it would be almost impossible to live (with the cute penguins pictured).  Or the spiders they are giving away at the Tulsa store with each banana purchase.  Hey this was a good one since there was a spider finding the Tulsa Whole foods that looked like an exotic deadly spider.

This all came to me in an email earlier today and for some reason I actually read the deals in the email when I normally do not.  They caught me on a good day.  April 1st.. the most creative april fools joke i have seen yet today.  Whole foods is my favorite place to shop–One of the first things I look for if I move is to have a Whole Foods near me!