Friday, January 17, 2014

HIV/AIDS Update

Last fall I wrote here every for several weeks about a single subject:  AIDS.  How can we get involved?  What can we do to protect ourselves?  How can we protect others?  What about fundraising and what about treatments and research?  There are millions of things that can be said, and we only scratched the surface here, so today I am going to return to an every Friday AIDS post and I hope some of you will get involved.
 
I can remember the day when there was no such thing as AIDS and I also remember when there was so much dying but we were still in the early stages and people were calling it gay cancer and a number of other things.  The deaths were so high I actually lost count of how many people died that I personally knew.  Research has brought us a long way but there still is no cure and even with great advances in medicine, there are still deaths.  What I would like to see is the day when once again, there is no such thing as AIDS, except in the history books.
 
AIDS stigma is a huge problem too.  Any kind of prejudice is bad but this stigma and the fear of violence has prevented many people from being tested or for returning for their test results.  It has often prevented people from getting treatment which leads to a shortening of their lives.  We need to not only find a cure for the disease, but also a cure for the stigma.
 
We  need more people to step up and get involved too.  We can lick this - but are we all really trying?

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