In 1981, homosexual men in Los Angeles and New York were discovered with an unusual lung infection (pneumonia) called Pneumocystis carinii now known as Pneumocystis jiroveci and rare skin tumors called Kaposi’s sarcoma. These patients also had a severe reduction of a type of cell in their blood that was an important part of their immune system, called CD4 cells. These cells are commonly called T cells. They help the body fight infections.

This unusual disease soon came to be known as AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The virus that causes AIDS came to be known as HIV, human immunodeficiency virus.

HIV is a retrovirus. This is a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. One of these infections is AIDS.

HIV causes AIDS, but what causes HIV. Normally, antibodies and white blood cells attack and destroy foreign organisms that enter your body. This defensive action is coordinated by white blood cells known as CD4 lymphocytes.

These lymphocytes are also the main targets of HIV. HIV attaches to the cells and then enters them. Once inside, HIV inserts its own genetic material into the lymphocytes and uses them to make copies of itself.

When the new copies of HIV break out of their host cells and enter the bloodstream, they look for other cells to attack. While this is happening, the old host cells and some uninfected CD4 cells die from the effects of the virus. This cycle repeats itself over and over, again.

During this process, billions of new HIV particles are produced every day.  Over time, the number of CD4 cells in your body decreases, leading to severe immune deficiency.  This means your body can no longer effectively fight off viruses and bacteria that cause disease.

At first, you may not be affected by HIV. However, within 2 to 4 weeks after being infected with HIV, 80 to 90% of the people develop an influenza or mononucleosis-like illness called acute HIV infection.

You may be affected by HIV in several different ways. These include:

§  Lymphadenopathy

§  Pharyngitis

§  Rash

§  Myalgia

§  Malaise

§  Mouth and esophageal sores

§  Headache

§  Nausea and vomiting

§  Enlarged liver/spleen

§  Weight loss

§  Thrush

§  Neurological symptoms.

You may have HIV. You may need financial assistance.

You may have sought this help from the Social Security Administration by applying for Social Security disability benefits or disability benefits because of your disability caused by HIV. Were you denied?

If you plan to appeal the denial by the Social Security Administration, you will need a caring disability attorney like the one you will find at socialsecurityhome.com to represent you in this procedure. The reason for this is because people who have a confident disability lawyer on their side are approved more often than people who do not have an attorney.

Perhaps.

IOM proposes changes

According to a Sept. 24 post at a lesbian/gay/bi/trans/ (LGBT) site reporting from Dallas, Texas, the Institute of Medicine has an idea to further HIV patients qualifications for Social Security programs.

At The Aids Beacon ( aidsbeacon.com), they’re saying, “The report recommends new criteria for determining whether an HIV-positive individual qualifies for disability benefits. The new guidelines also suggest reevaluation of disability status for most people with HIV every three years.”

Proposal woould include new patients only

However, if you, friends or loved ones are affected, rein in your hopes for long-term patients–this would apply to new apps, only:

“If adopted by the Social Security Administration (SSA), the guidelines would apply only to new applications; they would not be applied retroactively to people with HIV who are already receiving disability benefits.”

Here’s the .edu page for the institute, where you can find two links: this one is to the Sept. 13 paper entitled “HIV and Disability: Updating the Social Security Listings.” The second is to a Sept. 16 report called “HIV Screening and Access to Care: Exploring Barriers and Facilitators to Expanded HIV Testing.”

Listings of Impairments

According to AidsBeacon.com:

To determine if someone is eligible to receive disability, SSA consults its lists of health conditions, called Listings of Impairments. Individuals who are not working and who have a medical condition included in the Listings are usually considered disabled by SSA, and they can be approved for benefits more quickly and in fewer steps.

The HIV Infection Listings, created in 1993, are the guidelines used to determine whether people with HIV are considered disabled and eligible for disability benefits. At the time they were created, people infected with HIV usually died within a few years due to AIDS-related illnesses.

IOM says Infection Listings outdated

There’s a bunch of useful info at these sites, with AidsBeacon taking the lead at sorting it out. For example, the IOM prelim page says, “In its report, the IOM finds that the HIV Infection Listings, which were developed in 1993, no longer adequately reflect medical reality. Over the past 15 years, advances in therapy have changed the course of HIV infection, and more people are living longer with HIV/AIDS. But their treatments require lifelong daily medications that may have significant side effects. The IOM recommends that SSA incorporate assessments of a claimant’s work-related functional capacity in the HIV Infection Listings. The IOM also identifies a series of actions that SSA can take to maximize the utility of the HIV Infection Listings.”

Proposal aims to clarify eligibility

But the AidsBeacon site further explains:

Under the current guidelines, a person with HIV must have a confirmed HIV-positive diagnosis and an illness that indicates their immune system has been compromised in order to be considered a disabled person.

These illnesses include opportunistic infections (infections that do not usually develop in individuals with healthy immune systems) and AIDS-defining cancers. The Listings contain a list of recognized AIDS-related opportunistic infections and cancers.

With the new recommendations, an applicant would be eligible for benefits if he or she has one of the following conditions:

• A CD4 (white blood cell) count at or below 50 cells per microliter of blood, a threshold that indicates an advanced stage of illness
• One of a few rare but fatal or severely disabling HIV-associated conditions, such as dementia or certain types of AIDS-related cancers. The committee advises that benefits for these diseases should be permanent.
• An HIV-associated condition, such as heart disease or hepatitis, that is already covered by another section of SSA’s full Listing of Impairments
• An HIV-associated condition, such as wasting syndrome, that is not already included in another section but that significantly impairs a person’s ability to function.

‘Consistency across ages’

Children who receive disability benefits must reapply upon turning 18.  From the .pdf of the brief of the report, “The IOM report recommends that to allow for a smooth transition, the HIV Infection Listing used for children should follow as closely as possible to that for adults. However, conditions specific to children and not found in adults should be retained. Such child-specific conditions should include neurological manifestations of HIV infection and HIV-related growth disturbances, and age-appropriate CD4 cell counts should be used in determining disability.”

Text found confusing

The report also takes aim at the preliminary text to the detailed listings. Acknowledging that the text “helps guide interpretations of how the listings are implemented,” the IOM also finds that the text is “confusing, disjointed, and difficult to read.” Therefore, the group recommends that  “SSA should rewrite the introductory text with the aims of simplifying and reorganizing the text to address appropriate audiences.”

More access to data

The group also wants the SSA to change its data-access policy, presumably without risking personal privacy, in a way that would benefit all patients.

Additionally, SSA collects data on each claim submitted, and evaluating these data can be important in identifying trends and patterns in the management and care of HIV infection. Such insight can help in detecting newly emerging clinical manifestations of HIV infection, assessing long-term adverse events of treatment, determining the consequences of nonadherence and resistance to HIV therapies, and informing future changes to the Listings. To aid in these efforts, SSA should revise its current policy of not making its data publicly available, as allowing wider access to outside groups and analysts could result in improving the timeliness and applicability of the HIV Infection Listings.

Group leader questions CD4 count

The LGBT site takes all this with a wary eye. “AIDS Arms Executive Directors Raeline Nobles said current regulations allow disability for people with a CD4 count of 200. She said that she sees many people now who can get along OK with a CD4 count of 100.

“ ‘But politically, it might be a way to cut some expensive corners,’ she said.

“She said reassessing over time might be reasonable.

“ ‘Over time some do get better,’ she said. ‘But 50 seems awfully low to me.’ ”

Spinal meningitis is the common laymen’s term for meningitis. It is also called meningococcal disease. Actually, all meningitis involves your spinal cord.

Spinal meningitis is an inflammation of the meninges, the membranes that cover your brain and spinal cord. It is an infection of the cerebrospinal fluid around your brain and spinal cord.

There are several types of meningitis. The most common is viral meningitis. This is also known as aseptic meningitis. You get this when a virus enters your body through your mouth or nose and travels to your brain.

Bacterial meningitis is rare, but can be deadly. It has a high mortality rate if it goes untreated. There can also be ongoing, serious complications like brain damage and paralysis.

Fungal meningitis is much less common than the other two forms. A fungus called cryptococcus, found in pigeon droppings, usually causes it. Fungus-related meningitis is rare in healthy people. However, someone who has a weakened immune system like a person with AIDS is more likely to become infected with this form of meningitis.

Spinal meningitis used to occur mainly in infants. However, because a vaccine is now given to infants, this infection now happens usually to adults. Spinal meningitis can happen to anyone at any age, but it is more common in people whose bodies have trouble fighting infection.

Even though there are several types of spinal meningitis, the signs and symptoms are similar. The most common signs and symptoms in teens and young adults are:

• Headache
• Vomiting
• Fever and chills
• A painful and stiff neck, especially when you try and touch your chin to your chest
• Seizures
• Trouble staying awake
• Sensitivity to light.

Babies, children, older adults and people with other medical problems may experience different symptoms like:

• Babies may refuse to eat and be cranky. They may cry when they are held. They also may have a rash.
• Young children may act like they have the flu. They may cough or have trouble breathing.
• People with other medical problems and older adults may only have fever and a slight headache.

You or a loved one may have had spinal meningitis. Complications from spinal meningitis may be why you are disabled and unable to work.

You may need help. You may need financial help.

Have you or your loved one applied for Social Security disability benefits or disability benefits from the Social Security Administration because of the disability caused by complications resulting from spinal meningitis? Were you denied?

You may appeal the denial by the Social Security Administration. If you do, remember this.

You will need a disability lawyer like the one at socialsecurityhome.com to represent you in this process. This is true because people who are represented by a disability attorney are approved more often than those people who are not represented by a lawyer.

AIDS-related lymphoma is a disease in which malignant (cancer) cells develop in the lymph system of patients who have AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV attacks and weakens your immune system. This allows infections and other diseases to invade your body. When this happens, because of AIDS, your immune system is not able to fight against them.

Many parts of your body have lymph tissue. Because of this, AIDS-related lymphoma can spread to almost any of your body’s tissues or organs. This includes your spleen, brain, liver or bone marrow (spongy tissue inside the large bones of your body that produces blood cells).

No one knows for sure what causes cancer. Researchers think that cancer is caused by your heredity and cancer causing agents in the environment. What is known is that people with AIDS are at a much greater risk for having this form of lymphoma than people who do not have AIDS.

There are several signs and symptoms that you may experience with AIDS-related lymphoma. However, other medical conditions may cause these same signs and symptoms. Your doctor is the one who can determine if they are being caused by AIDS-related lymphoma. Some of these signs and symptoms are:

• Night sweats
• A feeling of fullness below your ribs
• Unexplained fever
• Unexplained weight loss
• Swollen, painless lymph nodes in your groin, chest, neck or underarm
• Itchy skin
• Tiredness.

AIDS-related lymphoma usually grows faster than lymphoma that is not related to AIDS. It also spreads outside of your lymph nodes to other parts of your body more often.

You or a loved one may have AIDS-related lymphoma. This disease may be the reason that you or your loved one is disabled and cannot work.

If this is your situation, you may need assistance. You may need financial help.

Have you or your loved one applied for that financial assistance by applying for Social Security disability benefits or disability benefits from the Social Security Administration because of the disability caused by AIDS-related lymphoma? If you or your loved one was denied and you plan on appealing the denial, here is something that you may not know.

You or your loved one will need a disability lawyer like the one you will find at socialsecurityhome.com to represent you in the appeals process. This is true because people who have a disability attorney are approved more often than those without a lawyer.

Do not hesitate. Contact the disability attorney at socialsecurityhome.com, today.