The study, published in the (expensive, subscription only) AIDS journal and helpfully summarised by Aidsmap suggests that men who give lots of blow jobs to their HIV-positive partners develop antibodies specific to that partner’s virus, protecting themselves against infection. The more virus their partner has kicking around in their semen, the higher the concentration of specific antibodies, and the protection seems to last for quite a while too. None of the men became infected over the course of the study, even though their partners were not all on treatment.

I’ve never been one for warning people off oral sex — while it is not 100 percent risk free it’s almost always safer than any of the alternatives that provide as much fun. But I’d hate to lose my agonised public health type credentials entirely, so I’ll point out a caveat in this study. The couples who were recruited, an infected man with an uninfected partner, had to have been together for at least 6 months — beyond the most dangerous period for infection in most cases. Any guys who did get HIV through oral sex in that risky early part of their relationship wouldn’t be in the study, because they would no longer be in a “discordant” relationship.

I reproduce the Associated Press story in its entirety here:

HIV-positive man sentenced 35 years for spitting at officer

DALLAS (AP) — An HIV-positive man convicted of spitting into the eye and mouth of a Dallas police officer has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Because a jury found that Willie Campbell used his saliva as a deadly weapon, the 42-year-old will have to serve half his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. He was sentenced Wednesday.
Campbell was being arrested in May 2006 for public intoxication when he began resisting and kicking inside the patrol car, Dallas police office Dan Waller testified.
Campbell was convicted of harassment of a public servant.

I can see putting the guy away for a while for being a drunken lout, or just an idiot. But not as much of an idiot as the members of the jury, who don’t appear to know that HIV does not survive in saliva. Some people are confused by the fact that you can test for HIV on saliva, but that’s because commercial test kits look for antibodies to HIV, not the virus itself. But surely any self-respecting defence lawyer, not to mention any judge, ought to have directed the jury away from their ludicrous conclusion.

There’s been a fair bit of righteous indignation about this around the blogosphere, (from Gawker and Joe-my-God and Bill Crider, for example), but not enough, apparently, to spare the lout in question two decades behind bars at the expense of the long-suffering US taxpayer.

Thanks to Peter Deloughry for prodding me to post on this madness.