Charlie Sheen's November announcement that he is HIV-positive may be helping people save lives by prompting them to research prevention, a JAMA International Medicine study published Monday suggests.
The researchers found that media coverage of HIV the day Sheen made his Today announcement ranked in the top 1 percent of coverage of the last seven years. They also saw a sharp spike in the number of Google searches pertaining to HIV in the weeks after his disclosure. Many of the searches pertained to prevention methods, including terms like "condoms" and "HIV testing."
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