People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.
Eighty percent of Americans with HIV do not know they are infected.
Until everyone knows someone who has died of AIDS this prejudice and discrimination will continue.
Laws that treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk with respect start with the way that we treat them ourselves: as equals. If we are going to stop the spread of HIV in our lifetime, then that is the change we need to spread.
Now there are laws in many parts of the world which reflect the best of human nature. These laws treat people touched by HIV with compassion and acceptance. These laws respect universal human rights and they are grounded in evidence.
Some countries have good laws, laws which could stem the tide of HIV. The problem is that these laws are flouted. Because stigma gives unofficial license to treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk unlike other citizens.
Where you criminalize people living with HIV or those at greatest risk, you fuel the epidemic.
HIV brings out the best and the worst in humanity, and the laws reflect these attitudes.
My having HIV has no bearing on my business.
