Jay Ellis Quotes

I want people to start thinking about what it means to be HIV-positive and to ask questions about that.

HIV AIDS is a preventable disease and should never be a source of shame!

You know, it's a very treatable disease. You shouldn't feel ashamed. But I'm afraid that's carried on very much so from the first days of AIDS, when it was basically a gay disease. And then, of course, you know, it affected everybody.

I have full confidence in the ability of Foo Fighters' audiences to distinguish between questioning HIV and the obvious value of safe-sex practices.

India has an enormous amount of AIDS awareness.

I grew up in a different era. People were definitely afraid of HIV back then, but education also helped change the way we thought about the disease. That education helped my generation make smarter choices about the way we protected ourselves.

We think that if we get tested, that means you have to have HIV. Or we think that just by knowing someone with HIV, we're going to get HIV or because he's gay or she's a lesbian or whatever. This false information has been put out there and it's created this stigma that stops us from going to find out if we're infected. The truth is it doesn't matter who you are, if you're having sex, you need to be getting tested, plain and simple.

It's important not to lose sight of the fact people of all sorts are still putting themselves at risk. It happens to straight and gay, single and married. I have never been comfortable thinking of AIDS as something that 'other people' get.

From pink water bottles for breast cancer to dumping a bucket of ice water on your head for neuromuscular conditions, it seems we're bombarded by requests to be 'aware' of one thing or another.

People are so involved with immediate care, but at the same time there needs to be investment in educating people as adolescents when they're still HIV negative.

Eighty percent of Americans with HIV do not know they are infected.

The fight against AIDS in China is already well underway. The Chinese government and other funders are providing major support, and they'll continue to bear primary responsibility for delivering prevention and treatment.

If I knew I was positive, why would I have ever gone to PAW to take a test?

To tell you the truth, I'm shocked, as I travel across this country, at how little people know or don't want to know about HIV/AIDS. There are a lot of people who don't know that HIV is one thing and AIDS is another. Those people just think it's one big old alphabet of a disease.

When I was 12 years old, I got involved with an organization called Artists for a New South Africa. One of its missions is to help with HIV/AIDS awareness.

Knowing your HIV status is so important for your future health and that of your loved ones.

We grew up in an era where there was a lot of fear of HIV. Everybody worried about it and everybody took precautions, and everybody knew that it was a thing that was out there. As it slowed down, it left the spotlight, people forgot.

Young women who come to Rise every weekend range from ages 15-19 years if they're in school and 19-24 years if they're out of school. These empowered young women talk about protecting themselves, their friends and communities and how they can educate people to help break the stigma surrounding AIDS.

Within weeks of the Ebola hoax dying down, the guys at Health Africa International approached my friends George Weah, Mahamadou Diarra, and I to be part of the initiative in using various forms of communication to promote a Ebola prevention education programme.

I get tested for HIV twice a year.... One has to be socially aware. It's part of being a decent human to be tested for STDs. It's just disgusting behaviour when people don't. It's so irresponsible.

And the stigma hasn't really changed that much in 31 years. You are still getting people - it's a shame-based disease. It's based on sexual transmission. And it's still shame-based. And until people feel strong enough and feel loved enough to actually open up and say, listen, I'm HIV-positive, then we are facing an uphill battle.

You can’t do anything about HIV-AIDS unless you are willing to talk about condoms.

I got tested for AIDS. I know Barack got tested for AIDS. There is no shame in being tested for AIDS. It’s an important thing.

You can’t have a campaign against AIDS that emphasizes global abstinence.

The FDA first began prohibiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood in the early 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, when the risk from blood transfusion was just beginning to be understood. In the decades to follow, the 'lifetime ban' was left largely unchanged.