It was 4 a.m. on election day when I woke up with horrible stomach pain and nausea. I kneeled before the “Porcelain God” for a couple of hours, asking for reprieve, until I gave up and decided to make myself useful; drag myself off of the bathroom floor, throw a hoodie on over my pajama pants and drive to the library around the corner to vote. Murphy’s Law would have it that I would bump into just about everyone I didn’t want seeing me in my ‘jammies that cold and rainy November morning; it was my civic duty to get my vote in. No excuses. Besides, I had another civic responsibility that afternoon. I had committed to helping in the production of an AIDS awareness TV PSA, an issue I feel strongly about, and I wasn’t about to back out, no matter how poorly I felt (or looked) that day.
Years later, I am told now and then that the PSA “Get Real, Get Tested” is still on the air. Friends say they saw me on that “commercial” on FOX, with that “attitude.” They congratulate me for a job well done and tell me I “looked great.” I even had a guy approach me at the gym to ask if I am the one in “that AIDS commercial.” When I verified his assumption, he paused in deep thought and asked, “So, do you have it?” … “Have what?” I asked, “AIDS,” he responded. So you see, it’s great that the message is still out there, though sadly it’s still not enough. There is a serious message there, a serious issue at stake and I don’t think these folks are really hearing it. Perhaps they don’t think it’s relevant to them. Perhaps, because most people still think HIV is dirty, that you only get it if you’re promiscuous, bi-sexual or poor in Africa.
If your grandmother has breast cancer, you’d likely get sympathy and support. If you announce that your grandmother is HIV positive there is a stigma associated with it, there is little sympathy. We should all know better by now.
Ignorance continues to be the real problem. They say ignorance is bliss, but in an information age, how is that possible?
It’s important to remember that HIV was not a health problem until the 1980′s when the virus was identified. Because it is spread by blood, some people were infected through blood transfusions early before screening began in 1985. The HIV virus does not discriminate between men and women. Both can be infected, and can infect others. While men still make up the majority of HIV cases in the U.S. it’s estimated that 300,000 women are living with HIV. Even more disturbing, Women of color account for 79 percent of all new infections among women 13 to 19 years of age, and 75 percent among women 20 to 24 years of age. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, there were 4,377 deaths among women with an AIDS diagnosis in 2008.
Today is World AIDS Day. 30 years after the epidemic surfaced, more than 30 million people have died and twice as many have been infected with HIV. An LA Times article reported, “United States has seen 40,000 new infections a year for the past decade. It’s like accepting the Vietnam War’s number of deaths, but doing it every year. We’ve become complacent, and it’s unacceptable — especially after we know how effective testing and treatment is.”
It is about time everyone began paying attention to the AIDS epidemic. We can continue to hope for a cure, but if we fail to stem the epidemic, endless thousands more become infected and those who cannot afford treatment will die. It is our civic duty to care about those living with and affected by AIDS/HIV. It is time to educate ourselves and to work together to prevent the spread of HIV as we have done for other highly fatal, dangerous infections.
20 years after the introduction of the iconic red ribbon symbol, which was created as a source of hope to motivate advocacy and bring change, we are reminded that, like voting, we ALL have to participate in the process to be a part of the solution.
