Pessimistic about the world? Have you written off activism as a dead end? Think again. Thanks to the courageous efforts of one activist at a time, we’ve come a long way since the hellish first days of AIDS. Once upon a time, being HIV positive meant early death and having to endure enormous bigotry.
Fortunately, these days we have ways to prevent it. Folks who are tested early and are found to be HIV positive can live long lives with treatment.
Moreover, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is working to end the U.S.’s epidemic within the next ten years!
In addition, it’s working to end discrimination in the U.S. against patients with HIV!
Since 1988, each December, people worldwide show their support to end HIV, both as a disease and as a stigma. We pay our respects to those whose lives have been cut short by it, and to those who live with it.
Here are some of my impressions of the early days of AIDS, which I wrote in reply to my good David Hunt’s post here. He also wrote about it here. Another site with historical information is Gay in the 80s.
Do you ever feel like activism is useless? How do you keep from getting down?
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 
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It took a very long time to recognize HIV, even longer to do something about it. Too many in this country decided to write off the population that was most affected by this scourge. Until they realized this scourge affected their own friends and family. Thanks for the reminder, Daal – aids is still with us and we still need to wipe it out.
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Daughter #1 is an MD. Specializing in Infectology and HIV. She did a 6 month “stint” with Doctors without Borders in North Kenya, treating children and women infected with HIV, plus opportunistic resistant TB. HIV is controllable. So far. One of the major dangers is contamination of children at birth. But that too can be avoided. MOre public money is needed…
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Stands to reason you’d have taught her to be a fabulous citizen of the world 🙂
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:). Well, she taught herself a lot of that…
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❤ I suspect you’re giving yourself too little credit 🙂
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🙂 Well, the way I look at it is that parents’ job is just to leave as many avenues open for the kids to excel at what they are best in.
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Yes, there has been a lot of progress. But still, HIV is not curable. So there still is a lot of work ahead.
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Sometimes it seems like activism is dead and useless but it may be because we live in such an instant culture now. Activism takes time to see progress and it also take patience, something I don’t think many of us have in the 21st century.
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True, Kathy – I think people too easily forget, too, that activism is ongoing so that things don’t backslide…
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EXACTLY! Like just because we achieved A, doesn’t mean we stop and celebrate forever…the work must continue.
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me being me, I relate a lot of stuff to having doggies – not like you can just tell them once & be done lol
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Great post
Thank you
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I’ve watched films where HIV/AIDS has been the crux of it and where it’s claimed the lives of so many and I’ve cried my eyes out. It’s awful to think of what it was like back that, and not really even all that long ago. So incredibly sad. And the stigma and prejudice around it all… heartbreaking. It’s so good that we’ve come so far with treatments, and a little further with the social understanding of it, but there’s still work to be done, in my opinion, around the negative stereotypes and prejudice. Fab post, da-AL! xx
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I agree, Caz – glad you enjoyed the post 🙂
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I work in a prison, where HIV and AIDS are common in comparison to the rest of society.You’re right, with today’s medicine most can live a long and healthy life.
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