—An AIDS paranoid

Any instruments used that may involve blood contact (i.e., ear piercing, manicures, barber,etc.) should be sterilized, both to be hygienic as well as to address public health issues. You can, and need to, ask your barber or hairstylist about his/her practices. The HIV virus is quite fragile, and is killed by heat, ordinary soap and water, household bleach solutions, alcohol, Lysol, or peroxide. In the unlikely event that the instruments are not sterilized, exposure to the air kills the virus, usually in a matter of seconds. Materials that could theoretically carry the virus in small amounts have not been implicated as the cause of any case of AIDS. For further information, see Columbia University Handbook on HIV and AIDS, available to students at Health Services at Columbia.

Alice

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