The general population still thinks HIV is something that came in the 80s and went away, or that it only affects the gay population or intravenous drug users.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A lot has changed since the 1980s, when the United States was a country with one of the greatest numbers of people infected with HIV.
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.
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.
I remember specifically, in the summer of 2002, the rate of women infected with HIV/AIDS was beginning to match the rate of men, and nobody was talking about it. It was as if it was on nobody else's radar. I had made up my mind to do something about it.
There are so many different varieties of HIV out there.
Some countries that I go to are still trying to deny that it's happening. In India, 2.1 million people are living with HIV AIDS. India manufactures most of the drugs that are used to cure HIV around the world, which is an amazing, amazing fact that most people don't know.
We see new things all the time. We see new retroviruses out there - which is the category that HIV falls into - and we're very, very concerned because this is the part of the world where HIV jumped from chimpanzees to humans.
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.
I think these last 10 years have seen just a huge shift in the psyche of this country as regards gay people. I think AIDS had a lot to do with it. So many families who really believed they'd 'never met one' were suddenly confronted with their sons becoming ill, and friends of sons. I think that brought a lot of it into the open.
I think so many doors have been opened for the gay community as far as the dangers and horrors of HIV. There is so much more out-ness now.
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