Michael Specter Quotes

I have an AIDS ribbon tattooed on my arm.

Too many people have already lost their lives to HIV and AIDS, and the more celebrities who can bring attention to the issue, the better.

We must encourage people to get educated, to get tested, to get involved in the fight against AIDS.

I felt like calling attention to AIDS. I had the AIDS ribbon colored into my hair during the playoffs in '95.

Being in the design industry, I've tended to meet more people who are affected by HIV and AIDS.

The AIDS epidemic began before I was born - I've never known a world without it. And yet, despite its omnipresence in our lives, there remains a pervasive silence around AIDS among young people, particularly young women.

Being part of the Queen story and knowing what Freddie Mercury went through before he died of AIDS has really shown me how far we've come in fighting this disease.

HIV/AIDS is a very big problem in my country South Africa, so I hope to stand as an advocate for that.

I lost relatives to AIDS. A couple of my closest cousins, favorite cousins. I lost friends to AIDS, high school friends who never even made it to their 21st birthdays in the '80s. When it's that close to you, you can't - you know, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.

I think AIDS can be won. I think we can win this fight. It is winnable. But it means behavior change.

The important thing is this Just because I'm doing well doesn't mean that they're going to do well if they get HIV. A lot of people have died since I have announced. This disease is not going anywhere.

HIV infection and AIDS is growing - but so too is public apathy. We have already lost too many friends and colleagues.

The challenges surrounding HIV and AIDS are getting more complex and mature, and we just can't stick our heads in the sand and say 'it can't happen to me.'

Let us give publicity to H.I.V./AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of H.I.V./AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.

We must have safe places where people can discuss and be treated. Forty-four million people are already dead from AIDS. What logic is there in not discussing the word?

When the AIDS epidemic broke, because I happened to be a science nerd and knew a lot about viruses and a lot about that virus at the time, I felt a moral obligation to go out and try to stem the fear and get out and explain to people what the disease was and how it worked.

Most recently my battle has been against AIDS and the discrimination surrounding it.

I just feel I've got thousands and thousands of young fans that have to learn about what's real when it comes to AIDS.

The greatest grand challenge for any scientist is discovering how to prevent the spread of HIV and finding the cure or an effective vaccine for AIDS.

Those of us who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s have a very special spot in our heart for home-based health care.

A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

From 1989 to 2000, I was focusing in on my children. I hadn't realized the world had changed a lot. AIDS had happened, for starters, and so many people in the arts died or were affected.

I think we all realize that anyone can - and has - gotten AIDS. So there's obviously still a lot to be done.

I'm over there filming in South Africa now, and two in five are HIV-positive now. Not many people know that.

My mom's best friend growing up was diagnosed with AIDS, and he basically raised me when my mom was launching her business. Although I didn't understand at the time what HIV or AIDS was, I knew that's what he passed away from.