Can you get HIV from a drinking glass?

Q: Leah: I might just be a paranoid mom, but I'm hoping you can ease my mind. A friend of mine recently told me she may have been exposed to HIV, and now I'm worried because my daughter drank some juice from a glass this friend used when she was over for a visit. Could my daughter be at risk?

A: Dr. Dean: Put your mind at rest. Even if your friend has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as far as we can tell there would be no risk to your daughter.

HIV is transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids. In your friend's case, the most common cause of transmission would be if she had sex with either a needle-using drug addict or bisexual man with HIV.

We have no documented evidence of anyone getting HIV from sharing food or utensils with an HIV-positive person.

There was one case in France, of all the millions of AIDS cases in the world, where a man with AIDS lived with his parents and they became HIV-positive, but we don't know how that happened. It could have been caused by some kind of unusual situation - some saliva or through a cut.

The important thing to remember here is that it takes more than one germ to infect a person with HIV. Most people think one germ or virus will do it, but that just isn't so. Usually, your  immune system can handle one bug, and every disease has its critical mass - the number of germs needed to infect - which we're always trying to determine.

For some diseases, it may be as little as 10 or 20 germs; with AIDS, we don't quite know. It might be possible, but in terms of being a mom, don't sweat it.

Dean Edell, M.D.

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