HEALTH AND WELLNESS

                             “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. ...

                   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...

                                                                                 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. PROTE...