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WHAT IS WRONG WITH GAMBLING?

                             “Around 290,000 Australians are problem gamblers and account for over $3 billion in losses annually. This is disastrous not only for these problem gamblers, but also for the estimated 1.5 million people they directly affect as a result of bankruptcy, divorce, suicide and lost time at work.”-J. Howard, prime minister of Australia, 1999. John, mentioned in the preceding article, became a problem gambler. He moved to Australia, where he got married to Linda, also a gambler. John’s addiction grew worse. He says: “I progressed from buying lottery tickets to betting on racehorses and gambling at casinos. I ended up gambling nearly every day. I sometimes gambled away my whole paycheck and had nothing left with which to pay the mortgage or feed the family. Even when I won a lot of money, I continued to gamble. It was the thrill of winning that hooked me.” Individuals like John are not uncommon. Whole societies seem to have caught gambling fe

GAMBLING; A GLOBAL UNHEALTHY FASCINATION

                   John, who grew up in Scotland, dreamed of winning the lottery. “I bought a lottery ticket every week, “he says. “It cost me just a small amount of money, but that ticket gave me hope of gaining everything I ever wanted.” Kazushinge, who lives in Japan, loved horse racing. “Gambling at the racetrack with my friends was a great deal of fun, and I sometimes won large sums of money,” he recalls. “Bingo was my favorite game,” says Linda, who lives in Australia. “This habit cost me about $30 a week, but I loved the thrill of winning.” John, Kazushige, and Linda viewed gambling as a relatively harmless form of entertainment. Hundreds of millions of people around the world share that viewpoint. A 1999 Gallup poll showed that two thirds of Americans approved of gambling. In 1998, American gamblers spent about $50 billion on legalized gambling –more than they spent on movie tickets, recorded music, spectator sports, theme parks, and video games combi

HIV/AIDS; NOW TREATABLE BUT NOT CURABLE

                                                                                 WHAT ARE ARVs? In a healthy person, helper T cells stimulate or activate the immune system to attack infections. HIV particularly targets these helper T cells. It uses the cells to replicate itself, weakening and destroying helper T cells until the immune system is seriously compromised. Antiretroviral drugs [ARVs] disrupt this replication process. Currently, four main types of ARVs are administered. NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES and NON-NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGUES prevent HIV from copying itself onto a person’s DNA. PROTEASE INHIBITORS block a specific protease enzyme in infected cells from reconstructing the virus and producing more HIV. FUSION INHIBITORS aim to prevent HIV from entering cells. By suppressing HIV replication, ARVs can slow the progression from HIV infection to AIDS, dubbed the most severe clinical form of HIV disease ARV therapy is widely administered in high-income countries. Howe