**Heavy topic warning** AIDS Day

I watched Bono on the Daily Show last night. I think that interview was amazing. I love what he has done for awareness and if I can buy an RED products today, I will.

The idea is to make the medication available to those in need and if taken during the right stages, can prevent the "scourge" from spreading. I'd google the interview and watch it. Very good info!

I'm glad to see more education and at least a little less discrimination. AIDS was a gay man's disease in the past but that mind set was just silly, and likely contributed to the issues we are still having with containing it. I think more needs to be done for sure but you can say that about a whole slew of things. Just the fact that we have an aids day is a step in the right direction.

There is SO much more awareness than there was 20+ years ago. I hope that they come up with a CURE in my life time. I have lost many friends and have several that are fighting the fight. It seems to me that the drug companies are more focused on finding drugs to manage illnesses than finding a cure (= more money in their pockets if people of to keep taking drugs).

My best friend works for an HIV/AIDS clinic as a caseworker. She basically develops relationships with her clients, who have AIDS, and helps them with their medication and things like that - and is just a friend to them. I didn't know this, but she told me that even missing just ONE dose of medication, can screw someone up so badly that it can speed up the process and effects of the disease on their body so much that they will die significantly sooner. ONE dose, can you imagine that? Think of how many times you have missed taking an antiobiotic or some time of daily med....

We participated in a AIDS walk 2 months ago in Indianapolis and it was pretty eye-opening for me. I believe the number was something like 40,000 hoosiers have AIDS. (that could be wrong, but that's what I remember it being.) It's shocking.

And my friend, Hannah - the caseworker, is one of the strongest people I know. She has a favorite client and has developed an awesome relationship with her. The client's family has disowned him because he has AIDS and Hannah is literally his own friend. She spent last Monday in the hospital with him all night, with the doctors saying he was going to die at any moment. Fortunately, he pulled through and is home now (he's also very stubborn, ha) But I have never seen Hannah more torn apart than she was that day. It's so sad.

i think that those of us here in the Western world have come a very long way. we've tried to take the stigma away. and for most ppl it's worked. mostly. Vim is right, there are areas in the US where the stigma is still very much alive and kicking. and the older generations are at risk now - STDs of all shapes and sizes are running rampant in retirement communities. so there is still a lot to do. but we have come SO far.

back in the epidemic, i knew a guy who went to seven funerals in a month. all friends. so, the fact that THAT is no longer happening, is beautiful.

worldwide, we have even MORE work to do. this is why it's so important to give to organizations who are working on the problem, buy RED products, sign petitions.

and i have put on my red ribbon for the day.



**** edited to add: and then i see my news feed. apparently the Hershey School in PA has denied addmittance to a 13 year-old boy, due to his HIV status. http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/health/134802368.html

Ryan White contracted it through a blood transfusion as well, right?

yes, Ryan White was hemophillac and became infected from a tainted blood treatment and was diagnosed in Dec of 84. He was only given less than a half of a year to live, but he lived an additional 6 years. He was not allowed to attend schools in the Kokomo Indiana school district, and he fought against this judgement..........parents protested for and against Ryan on his decision to attend school.
I remeber that it went into the courts and he got lots of support from Elton John and went on national television on his crusade in advocating for rights while being HIV pos....

It was also a shock that Magic Johnson (basket ball player) is HIV pos, and since the disease appeared, lots of famous and not so famous people have died, ie, Rock Hudson, Brad Davis moviestar, Anthony Perkins from Psycho, Robert Reed, aka Mr. Brady on the Brady Bunch, Tom Fogerty who was the brother of John Fogerty the song writer/musician who contracted it as a hemophilliac, Greg Lougannis the swimmer, Freddy Mercury of the group Queen, and I think that the wife of Paul Michael Glassner, the guy who played in Starsky and Hutch died as well............lots of famous and millions of not so famous have died because of it........

Even Eliazbeth Montgomery ( who played Samantha) of Bewitched, the TV series from the 60s and 70s was the grand marshall at a Gay Pride Parade in Pasadena to show support for her co star, the 2nd Darrin who was diagnosed with AIDS, I think his name was Richard Seargant, .........but he is gone as well.........

Thanks for letting us know it s AID awareness day ,I didnt know.............Best wishes..........Lloyd

also forgot about Princess Diana and that one shot of her caressing and holding an infant as well as hugging an AIDS patient in a hospital.......

Ashlie, so sorry about your dad. Youre right rumors and comments can hurt.........I just read a few articles about George Michael, the singer from the group WHAM, who is in a Vienna Hospital with pneumonia and the comments that followed are all speculation that he has to have AIDS.........really sad, because he is gay and has pneumonia, hes sterotyped as "dying of AIDS"

really sad, I guess this discrimanation and ignorance still abounds...................Lloyd

I was talking about this with a friend earlier. Definitely less. Not that I'm knocking any other initiative for any other disease. I think it's great there are so many people passionate about fighting life threatening diseases of all kinds that effect us all. However, AIDS was the first disease to have a ribbon for recognition and one of the first to have a day for recognition, and it seems people forget about it. I'm not sure if it's the stigma of supporting the cause or fear of something we can't control. I think there are still a lot of people so uneducated about the disease. So many people joke about it and make it a bad thing. So often we hear things like "he/she probably has AIDS" in an insulting way. No one would ever use cancer in the same manner. My father passed away from AIDS, and I strongly and openly support all initiative to fight the disease, educate the world, and take steps towards and AIDS free generation. We shouldn't be afraid to take a stand

I'm very sorry to hear about your father as well. The stigma makes me so very angry. AIDS doesn't discriminate, nor should it's victems be discriminated against.

Thank you!

It's crazy how only recently, I learnt that aids pretty much went epidemic due to needle corporation greed.

I've never heard that. I can think of about a dozen different things to blame it going epidemic on. That wasn't on my list!

I always thought it turned epidemic simply because of unprotected sex - but apparently in the 60's when the big medical supplies companies switched from glass needles (which can be sterilised) to plastic needles (which can't) that's when AIDs really started to get big.

There may be more KNOWLEDGE in 2011 than there was in 1989, but I think that AWARENESS, at least in this country, is down. The appropriate level of fear is down.... just look at the teen pregnancy rate, especially among black and Hispanic teens. Condoms aren't being used there consistently, and abstinence is a joke to kids now who think it's their entitlement to have sex as early as they want, without consequences. There's still a false sense of security among teens/20's that HIV/AIDS is a "gay" disease, not something that straight kids get. I have a real fear for the current generation of kids and for how many undiagnosed STDs we have out there, with HIV being the worst.

I definitely think that there is less awareness today. 10+ years ago we would have specials on World AIDS Day to keep people informed, and there was Day Of Compassion (I think it was June 21st) when all the daytime shows would do storylines about AIDS (General Hospital was big with this, having the whole Robin/Stone storyline....and they even had Jeanne White, Ryan White's mother, on the show).
Even something like the AIDS Memorial Quilt...I don't think it is shown as much. When I saw it years ago, it was so heartwrenching, and I remember my mom saying that until she saw all those panels that represented a person, she didn't realize what those numbers really meant.
I just saw somewhere the other day that there are tens of thousands of people living their life, not knowing they are HIV+. I hope that awareness gets better than it has been lately, and perhaps having discussions like this will be a good start.


No Day But Today