i was 19 at the time. and scared shitless. we all remember what the stigma was like then. My salvation at the time was the whitman walker clinic in DC which provided the meds and treatment and counseling that set my up for a successful management of this disease. i took comfort in knowing that president clinton was committed to the fight against hiv/aids. he even had a sub-cabniet level aids-czar that addressed the unfolding aids crisis with considerable aplomb. for a sick, confused lonely kid who was scared out of his wits, it was extreemly important for me to see the president assume initiative in this fight.
Each and everyone of us knows and loves someone with HIV/AIDS. Something like 60,000,000 people in the world are infected which sounds an awful lot like a statistic, if you ask me. If you lined the HIVers up head to toe, they might stretch from here to the moon or something. (are there any fact checkers out there??)
But seriously, as I sit here writing this i realize I am one of the lucky ones. I have an undectable viral load, 1000 T cells, am in great shape, and by all outward appearances, have a totally normal life. Does anyone out there ever wonder how much HIV meds cost, retail, peryear? something like $18,000. Folks, that is like one dollar 18,000 tiimes!!!! (yuck, yuck)
I consider myself to be woefully underinsured and uninsurable. but still, as an american i am lucky. i can access the meds with little problem. HIV transmissions are highest wherever poverty is rife : Africa, Southeast Asia, the former Soviet bloc. In these regions the price of HIV meds is upwards of 10 and 20 times what people make in a whole year. Scarey huh? People who are socially, politically, culturally or economically marginalized will ALWAYS suffer greater degrees of EVERYTHING that is bad, HIV transmission rates not withstanding.
Twenty years on and we still have a helluva fight on our hands. maybe it has been too long since we have witnessed people getting skinny and (literally) dying before our eyes, but the fact remains, THIS PANDEMIC IS STILL REAL!
If i were a 19-year-old testing positing today's political climate, i would be terrified. I hope 2006 will be a better one for this disease. I am not teribly hopeful.
thanks for reading.
jay
http://einkleinesblog.blogspot.com/
(that is a link to my blog, hope check it out sometime!)
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after i posted this diary, there was a piece on NPR about aids in africa.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5074670
this kinda makes living with the disease in NJ seem like a picnic.