I don't care if I get flamed or not for writing this, but I completely agree with W222; s/he took the words right out of my mouth. The original poster's friend is obviously not thinking about the potential consequences of having a (sexual) relationship with this man. I seriously doubt she has thought through her what her experiences will be like when she finds her husband at the fate of his disease; unfortunately, he will most like pass away within the next 10-20 years. No matter how many antiviral cocktails the pharmaceutical industry is creating, inevitably this particular disease will expose its full-fledged share of symptoms, whether with old age or with a general trend of lacking immunity. Point is, not only will she come to outlive him, and have to bear through such a disheartening experience (read: multi-system failure) through the years of marriage with this man, she is also posing a risk to herself and to her children, which I am assuming she wants to have.
She is illogical for not reasoning this through completely. I would question anyone that would indeed voluntarily put themselves in this situation; she knew from the beginning that he was HIV+, so please, do not tell me a scenario in which a person develops an infection, disease, or disability years later, but is already married, in a relationship, etc - it is not the same type of analogy.
I also question this man's conscience; how could anyone knowingly, even amid permission from the other partner to engage in sexual activity, actually ever go through with it? He knows he will be full well responsible for transmitting it to her, and he himself will have to live through the rest of his own life bearing this guilt (hopefully this never happens).
Why is it so crazy that her own physician was against this? Hello? He is trying to protect her health. Your friend is irrational and immature. Although love is the single most critical component of a relationship/marriage, many other variables are also involved - including being realistic.
I don't know how anyone, any friend, could let a person knowingly go out with someone who is HIV+. It would be in my natural instincts to prevent my friend from harm, whether direct or indirect; I know I definitely would try to provide her any information I had about any possible worst case scenarios that could happen (partner-to-partner transmission, mother-to-infant transmission, etc.), as well as the likelihood of those occurances happening.
Medicine is a conservative profession, and I am fairly sure there will be at least a few prying eyes on the admissions committee table when they read over this person's statement. I think she really needs to forget about her personal statement at the moment, and concentrate on what she is about to step into.
Now, I want to leave you all with a little information. Manufacturers of condoms do not need to recall their products unless there is over a 4% defect rate. It has been shown that on average, the failure rate is 2% of each batch they distribute. Latex and polyurethane condoms are also the only ones that have a decreased permeability for HIV. According to studies, some of which are shown below, there is only an 87% level of protection against HIV transmission using a condom; in other studies, this has been expanded upon as ranging anywhere from 60% to 96%. There is a very good chance of being infected with HIV even when using condoms; there are also many other mechanical factors which could increase this rate (improperly using one, tearing, leakage as the result of excessive strain during use and pore expansion, etc.).
Fam Plann Perspect. 1999 Nov-Dec;31(6):272-9.
The effectiveness of condoms in reducing heterosexual transmission of HIV.
Davis KR, Weller SC.
Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, USA.
CONTEXT: It is not established whether the condom is as effective at preventing heterosexual transmission of HIV as it is for preventing conception. An overall estimate of condom effectiveness for HIV prevention is needed. METHODS: Information on condom usage and HIV serology was obtained from 25 published studies of serodiscordant heterosexual couples. Condom usage was classified as always (in 100% of acts of intercourse), sometimes (1-99%, 0-99% or 1-100%) or never (0%). Studies were stratified by design, direction of transmission and condom usage group. Condom efficacy was calculated from the HIV transmission rates for always-users and never-users. RESULTS: For always-users, 12 cohort samples yielded a consistent HIV incidence of 0.9 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval, 0.4-1.8). For 11 cohort samples of never-users, incidence was estimated at 6.8 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval, 4.4-10.1) for male-to-female transmission, 5.9 per 100 (95% confidence interval, 1.5-15.1) for female-to-male transmission and 6.7 per 100 (95% confidence interval, 4.5-9.6) in samples that specified the direction of transmission. Generally, the condom's effectiveness at preventing HIV transmission is estimated to be 87%, but it may be as low as 60% or as high as 96%. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent use of condoms provides protection from HIV. The level of protection approximates 87%, with a range depending upon the incidence among condom nonusers. Thus, the condom's efficacy at reducing heterosexual transmission may be comparable to or slightly lower than its effectiveness at preventing pregnancy
, thats a can of worms I would leave closed. You could question her judgment, not for dating him but for writing about it in a statement read by complete strangers. Granted she wont mention his name but if she matriculated at a school and then introduced her boyfriend to someone who read her application you would technically be breaching his right to privacy. If I was interviewing her i would say, who gave you permission to write about his condition? More than an issue of a HIV neg person dating an HIV 
