HIV/AIDS Stigma Quotes

Peter Jennings came to us and said to make a PSA, 'Let's Talk About AIDS.' But I was naive about how the virus is contracted - until Magic Johnson came out. I'd stereotyped it, thinking it was a gay disease, a white man's disease.

When AIDS first appeared, people didn't know what it was. You'll remember that it affected mostly young gay men - it was actually called GRID for a short period of time: Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Syndrome - and people thought it actually might be recreational drugs or other types of toxins.

Like no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say This is your fault. You have sinned. I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.

When the HIV/AIDS epidemic first appeared, a lot of the reaction was that it's not happening here. It doesn't exist. It's not on the continent of Africa. Then we moved into this other phase, in which it was kind of like, it's everywhere.

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.

I am so honoured to be supporting the Elton John AIDS Foundation and their mission making London and our global cities AIDS-free.

It is my mission to ensure that HIV-positive children and children with AIDS are no longer overlooked and that they begin receiving the treatment and care they deserve.

Male homosexuals have seduced and abused millions of underage boys. Their unclean sexual habits and ultra-promiscuous lifestyle have resulted in spreading the worst communicable plague in this century, the specter of AIDS, which has not only killed millions of their own, but also millions of others, including tens of thousands who contracted the virus from blood transfusions.

It will be impossible for us to eradicate HIV as long as any corner of the world is cut off from the education and services that we know helps stop the spread of this disease.

My name is Ryan White. I am sixteen years old. I have hemophilia, and I have AIDS.

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

In the 1980s we had the huge catastrophe of AIDS and you would walk down the street and see someone who was dying. It was horrendous.

AIDS is a very, very, very vicious disease, particularly in the black community.

When the AIDS epidemic first started there were people who said, "Well, if there weren't gays, then we wouldn't have this problem. It's got to be because of them - let it be them instead of us." But when you educate yourself about it, you can't help but realize that we're all affected by it. I think that things like that just become too daunting for people.

The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented crisis that requires an unprecedented response. In particular it requires solidarity - between the healthy and the sick, between rich and poor, and above all, between richer and poorer nations. We have 30 million orphans already. How many more do we have to get, to wake up?

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

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

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.

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?

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.

AIDS is such a scary thing and it's also the kind of thing that you think won't happen to you. It can happen to you and it's deadly serious.

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.

The poor homosexuals -- they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution (AIDS).

I have an AIDS ribbon tattooed on my arm.