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AIDS: A Stigma Endures
For two months, ostracized and alone, 19-year-old Marvelyn Brown slept on the gray vinyl seats of her 1996 Nissan Sentra in the parking lot of a Nashville Wal-Mart. When she visited her family, she used paper plates and plastic forks to eat so she wouldn't share dishes; all surfaces that she touched were wiped down with bleach. Her newly pregnant friend told her that she did not want Marvelyn around her child. In a matter of a few weeks, Marvelyn had lost the support of her friends and family - all because she had been diagnosed as HIV positive.
But Marvelyn's story is neither new nor unique. Her friends and relatives were suddenly confronting the realities of a potentially life-threatening infectious disease, and they responded to their lack of understanding about HIV/AIDS as many people do - with fear and mistrust.
Today is the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, and its message, "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise," calls on global leaders to deliver on the promise of universal access to prevention, treatment and care. Yet despite two decades of progress in the fight against this disease, there is still widespread stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS in the United States and across the world - fueled by myths, a lack of knowledge about how the disease is transmitted, and value judgments about how it is acquired. Though many people are familiar with the concepts of ageism and racism, there is another pervasive, pernicious form of discrimination that deeply affects many lives and must also be given a name: "aidsism."
Stigma, or aidsism, is a major barrier to HIV prevention, diagnosis, care and treatment. A national survey last year by the Foundation for AIDS Research found that 1 in 5 respondents would be uncomfortable even having a close friend who was HIV positive, and 59 percent would be uncomfortable with an HIV positive woman as a child care provider. Since 1990, there has been no change in the percentage of Americans who mistakenly believe that HIV can be transmitted by kissing (37 percent), sharing a drinking glass (22 percent), or touching a toilet seat (16 percent).
Twenty-seven years after the emergence of HIV, first reported in San Francisco, AIDS has become an inextricable part of the modern world, with every country now reporting HIV infection rates. With 33 million people worldwide and 1.1 million people in the United States living with HIV/AIDS, this disease cannot be ignored.
The United States has provided significant funding to developing nations through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, but America's own neighborhoods need help, too. Consider this: The number of African Americans living with HIV in the United States exceeds the number of HIV-infected people in seven of the 15 focus countries covered by the president's AIDS relief initiative.
With an estimated 56,000 new infections annually in America, our country urgently needs a domestic AIDS relief plan with a comprehensive national strategy to eradicate the disease. Such a plan must include a clear definition of HIV/AIDS-related stigma, a standardized set of criteria to measure it, educational campaigns to eradicate it, and research to increase knowledge about its impact on HIV testing, treatment and prevention, particularly in vulnerable populations, including minorities, women, and men who have sex with men.
As America turns a new page in its history with the landmark election of Barack Obama, our nation celebrates the values of equality and justice upon which it was founded. His victory ushers in a new era in HIV/AIDS policy with the promise of a national AIDS strategy to stop AIDS and help end the discrimination that people with this disease experience every day. This is essential.
On this 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, despite the medical advances that have been made, Marvelyn's story serves as a powerful reminder of the struggles and indignities that people living with HIV/AIDS still face. The antiretroviral drugs that she takes to treat her disease have lengthened her life but cause side effects, including nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and mood swings. But Marvelyn says that those side effects are "still not the worst part of having HIV. It is the stigma."
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10 Comments so far
Show Allthe mighty xzorloc says:
A curse on Doctor Gallo! and his fortunes! HIV is a psy-ops game being played out by the secret world government to destroy undesirables,
Does ANYBODY know the facts about the good doctor and his test???
This too shall pass.
The topic is people with AIDS being shunned.
SassyinSA
Please, the fact is right here in the US we have a major problem and we want to sweep it under the rug.
The new infection rate in African American women is the highest and they are more likely not to have either insurance or the money to purchase the drugs on their own.
The government spent Billions on useless programs like "Just Say NO". Why not a program to educate the general population about the myths vs realities of AIDS and how is transmitted, what is a scary precaution vs unnecessary.
I don't mean just sexual things but the fact that people still think you can "catch" AIDS from a drinking glass is a bit like thinking the world is flat.
We in the US are so backward regarding a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to do with sexuality and how it relates to ourselves and society as a whole.
"Deconstructing the Myth of AIDS" by Gary Null
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3983706668483511310&ei=sXw0SZV2p9yoA6Dc0dgP&q=deconstructing+the+myth+of+aids&hl=en
Gary Null could also be called Null and Void. His degree is not in medicine or scientific research. This article is about the stigma of AIDS, still remaining. Please address the issue not the career of Gary Null and Void.
I don't give a flying rat turd what Gary Null's degree is in. He hardly plays any role in this video at all, except as the producer and to briefly introduce the information therein. The video has MANY people who DO have degrees in medicine and scientific research, and they question the accepted orthodoxy of the AIDS issue. The video has little, if anything, to do with Gary Null's career - in fact, I was quite impressed by how much of a background role he took in the whole thing. He lets the facts speak for themselves, and leaves the limelight to the experts who don't follow the official line. Despite what you may think (or rather, what you have been told), not everyone believes the official HIV=AIDS=Sickness=Death line.
Thus, the video (and my link to it) are very much relevant to the issue at hand. The "stigma of AIDS" is predicated on the official story and the fear inherent within. If people understood that story and fear are based on lies or incomplete facts, perhaps there would be a LOT less stigma.
Blessings,
John
gnken
Well here is a posting from a guy who grew up and still living in rural Maryland. I m gay and fortunately Im no HIV. I have participated with 2 AIDS Charity Events AIDS Life Cycle Ride from San Francisco to L.A. as well I have been intimate with Guys who are HIV Pos. You have to be safe, and education is of the utmost importance. It is not a Gay or IV Drug user disease but can effect anyone. It is say for the woman in Tenn. to have to deal with being humiliated like that. HIV and AIDs are real and we need to understand and educate folks about it. Hopefully this next administration will be more open to better funding for AIDS research/education, and assistance. Let's hope.
MRSA, the new AIDS. ( see web site )
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/timmullins
The dangers of the medical industrial quack complex rolls on-
The Aids/Disease mongering medical industry has created a huge myth. This article illusrtates much of the typical pattern of junk criminal science and product promotion that drives the marketing.
First there is zero evidence that anything being sold the public about Aids is scientifically true. No virus has been isolated - all tests are invalid without viral isolation making all positives false positives - examination of Aids cases proves that it can't be sexually transmitted ( hetrosexual dominance in Africa - Homosexual dominence in America - population growth rate exploding in African countries which have the highest rates - medical drugs which are highly toxic and themselves cause all the symptoms of Aids ).
The list and logic of reasons why HIV = AIDS is utter lunacy is compelling to the minority of nonprogrammed people who are still capable of actually thinking. There is considerable discussion and review in books and youtube ( search under Aids Myth ) amongst honest scientists and self thinking individuals that anyone can access which takes apart the junk science and crimmal disease mongering profit driven forces perpertrating this fraud.
The article in question is rich with all the scare tactics and typical nonsense driving the disease mongering special interests - a poor young girl's life is destroyed because she tests HIV positive, an impossibility with a test that has no gold standard and includes the test manufacturer insert that a positive reading can not be considered as evidence of having the fathom virus ( the drug company lawyers know how to play the system ) - Next is the body of the article which is nothing more than an advertisment for huge the industry of HIV educators and allied parasite agencies which in total exceed by factors of 20 to 50 times the actual number of AIDS Cases, translation = AIDS INC needs business and their business is an invented one that must be feed - The call is for funds to continue the vested interests of so called treatment, prevention and care - money to drug companies and agencies all feeding at the poison pool on junk science and crimmal enterprise.
If 19 year old Marvelyn Brown, the poor victim of the body hunger AIDS INC, could have access to the information she really needs she would escape a terrible fate. Instead of being killed by a the immune destroying medical poison drugs that are given for a virus that shows no evidence of even existing and certaintly has no valid test to indicate a postive status, she would be protected with the best and only treatment that works - not having her immune system and life destroyed by corporate disease mongerers.
Elliot
Exactly.
See my video post above - an excellent documentary. And please ignore the reply by NYCartist.