2006. Twenty-five years of AIDS.
It is tempting to forget the morning rituals, when you inspected your body for lesions that might have appeared during the night and signal that it had started.
It is tempting to forget that when you asked, “Does this spot look purple to you?” you didn’t need to say anything else for everyone around you to know just what was on your mind, if not on your skin, and how fast your heart was racing as you uttered the words as casually as you could because sounding casual seemed to increase the chances of a reassuring response.
It is tempting to forget that there was a time when gay men were hoping not to lose weight, that plump meant healthy and healthy reassuring. And reassuring, in a turnabout so shocking for us then, meant sexy.
It is tempting to forget that people were dropping like flies, that many gay men in cities like New York or San Francisco were crossing out name after name from their address books, and it is tempting to forget that many gay men who had long left their families behind in favor of friendships were now left only with mere acquaintances, no one close still living.
It is tempting to forget how parents who had once expelled their faggot son now rushed to his bedside to keep te lovers and friends away, to contest the will, and to snatch the spoils of a life lived far from the tender bosom of the family.
It is tempting to forget that women never “got” AIDS but somehow died of it by the thousands.
It is tempting to forget that the truth could only be whispered or screamed but seldom simply told.
It is tempting to forget that kids were chased out of schools by their friends’ parents and by their friends and that their houses were burned to the ground.
It is tempting to forget that Ryan White was once described as a “homophiliac” in a newspaper.
It is tempting to forget the frightened medics and undertakers and the cop’s face masks and latex gloves, as they arrested dying young men and women fighting for their lives.
It is tempting to forget ACT UP’s unforgettable chant, “They’ll see you on the news; your gloves don’t match your shoes!”
It is tempting to forget angry queers screaming bloody murder and spitting out hosts in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
It is tempting to forget the pictures of Dorian Gray on TV and on the pages of magazines, the emaciated faces covered with lesions, the hollow stares, and the feeling that one might as well have been looking at a charred and contorted body hanging from a tree, like Billie Holiday’s strange fruit, as the crowd cheered.
It is tempting to forget gay-related immune deficiency and the gay cancer and the 4-H club — homosexual, heroin addict, hemophiliac, Haitian — and all the conspiracy theories and miracle cures that we knew were bullshit yet couldn’t help but consider just in case, because madness could make sense.
It is tempting to forget the promise of a vaccine in about five years and that it felt like such an eternity that researchers sounded almost apologetic when explaining that retroviruses are particularly treacherous foes.
It is tempting to forget the calls for quarantine camps and tattoos and mass expulsions, “solutions” whose pros and cons were discussed with the sort of equanimity now applied to the debate on torture.
It is tempting to forget that nobody gave a shit.
It is tempting to forget that all this is still happening far, far away from here.
It is tempting to forget and it is easy.
pp. 9-10, The Nearness of Others: Searching for Tact and Contact in the Age of HIV, David Caron.
Tag: HIV
Drug-resistant HIV strain discovered in Philippines could trigger new epidemic, scientists warn
A drug-resistant strain of the HIV virus discovered in the Philippines has the potential to spark a new epidemic, scientists have warned.
HIV prevalence among Filipinos has risen sharply in the past decade, at a time when infection rates across the world are beginning to decline.
The United Nations estimates the number of new cases identified in the Philippines each year has risen by 140 per cent since 2010.
Researchers are concerned a new drug-resistant version of the virus, HIV subtype AE, could be fuelling the epidemic.
The strain is more aggressive, more resistant to antiretroviral drugs and progresses to Aids faster than the HIV subtype B generally found in western countries.
“The HIV virus has the potential to transform itself into a new and different virus each time it affects a cell,” Dr Edsel Salvana, director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of the Philippines told DW.
“There are nearly 100 different subtypes of HIV, with new subtypes being discovered every day.
“Most HIV infections in the Western world are of subtype B. Most of the research that we have on HIV is also on subtype B, though it accounts for only about 12 per cent of all global HIV infections.
“We have discovered that the explosion of HIV in the Philippines is due to a shift from the Western subtype B to a more aggressive HIV subtype AE.”
Dr Salvana added: “Those infected by the HIV subtype AE are younger, sicker patients who are more resistant to antiretroviral drugs. We are also seeing a faster progression to Aids under subtype AE.”
Around 5,000 people in the Philippines were living with HIV in 2006, compared to around 56,000 in 2016, according to UNfigures.
The number of new cases being diagnosed has also spiked in recent years, with some 10,000 new cases identified in 2016 alone, giving the country the fastest-growing HIV rate in the Asia-Pacific region.
Dr Salvana warned work done in recent decades to combat the HIV virus risked being undone if research was not conducted into the new strain.
“HIV is not done yet. We cannot think of HIV as a single virus but as a collection of viruses that are evolving, with a new mutation that can possibly set off a new epidemic.
“The gains that we have made in decreasing HIV infection rates will be short-lived without research and treatment for HIV subtype AE,” he added.
“This is urgently needed. Specifically for the Philippines, we need more scientists willing to do research work on HIV.”
Drug-resistant HIV strain discovered in Philippines could trigger new epidemic, scientists warn
He Took a Drug to Prevent AIDS. Then He Couldn’t Get Disability Insurance.
Three years ago, Dr. Philip J. Cheng, a urology resident at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, nicked himself while preparing an H.I.V.-positive patient for surgery.
Following hospital protocol, he took a one-month course of Truvada, a cocktail of two anti-H.I.V. drugs, to prevent infection. Later, because he was an unattached gay man, he decided to keep taking Truvada to protect himself from getting H.I.V. through sex.
The practice — called PrEP, short for pre-exposure prophylaxis — is safe and highly effective. Several studies have shown that users who take the drug daily are at nearly zero risk of H.I.V. infection.
But when Dr. Cheng applied for disability insurance — which many young doctors do to protect a lifetime’s worth of income should they be hurt — he was told that, because he was taking Truvada, he could have only a five-year policy.
[…]
There are nearly 800 life insurers in this country, according to the American Council of Life Insurers. There are no national figures on how many of them have denied coverage to men because they take PrEP.
But insurance brokers, gay-rights advocates and staff at medical clinics said in interviews they had heard of numerous such cases. H.I.V. specialists say the denials endanger men’s lives by encouraging them to drop PrEP if they need life, disability or long-term-care insurance.
HIV stigma is based on bigotry and fear, not facts.
He Took a Drug to Prevent AIDS. Then He Couldn’t Get Disability Insurance.
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