Today is World AIDS Day.
December 1, 2004 2:40 AM Subscribe
Today is World AIDS Day. Take some time today to learn something new, or maybe get tested. Smart is sexy.
In June of 2004 I spent some time in Uganda. While there, I had the opportunity to observe (and the honour of being allowed to photograph) an HIV / AIDS outreach team working with patients in rural Uganda. I've put some of these online in a series entitled AIDS in Uganda.
HIV is one of the biggest social, economic and health challenges in the world. It is a global emergency claiming over 8,000 lives every day. 5 people die of AIDS every minute. AIDS does not discriminate on grounds of age, gender, ethnicity or creed. It can infect anyone. It can infect you. Don't take risks. Don't share needles. Use a condom.
posted by tomcosgrave at 3:31 AM on December 1, 2004
HIV is one of the biggest social, economic and health challenges in the world. It is a global emergency claiming over 8,000 lives every day. 5 people die of AIDS every minute. AIDS does not discriminate on grounds of age, gender, ethnicity or creed. It can infect anyone. It can infect you. Don't take risks. Don't share needles. Use a condom.
posted by tomcosgrave at 3:31 AM on December 1, 2004
This day gets me every year.
I've volunteered at an AIDS hospice, have had many friends who are infected with HIV, and have had to watch a couple of them die horribly due to the complications.
I've had to watch one friend of mine spend several years slipping slowly downhill, eventually having to step down from his position as a priest due to dementia from brain lesions.
I've had to hold the hand of a sixteen-year-old boy after he tested positive for HIV--after one sexual experience with someone who lied to him. I've lost touch with the boy, but I believe the man in question is currently appealing his sentence.
By whatever you hold sacred, please wear a condom, or insist that your partner does. Use dental dams. And above all, educate.
Parents, teach your kids about safer sex. Whether or not you believe in abstinence doesn't mean a thing: history has proven that where there's a will, there's a way. Don't kill your children with ignorance.
If you're going out to a bar with friends, take condoms. You may not need them--but someone else might.
Champion sex education classes. Real ones, where the real world is covered.
Be safe. This disease can be halted in its tracks. As much as I despise ACT UP for many of their tactics (including the current bullshit trying to suggest that HIV doesn't in fact cause AIDS), they did have one thing right: SILENCE = DEATH.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:04 AM on December 1, 2004
I've volunteered at an AIDS hospice, have had many friends who are infected with HIV, and have had to watch a couple of them die horribly due to the complications.
I've had to watch one friend of mine spend several years slipping slowly downhill, eventually having to step down from his position as a priest due to dementia from brain lesions.
I've had to hold the hand of a sixteen-year-old boy after he tested positive for HIV--after one sexual experience with someone who lied to him. I've lost touch with the boy, but I believe the man in question is currently appealing his sentence.
By whatever you hold sacred, please wear a condom, or insist that your partner does. Use dental dams. And above all, educate.
Parents, teach your kids about safer sex. Whether or not you believe in abstinence doesn't mean a thing: history has proven that where there's a will, there's a way. Don't kill your children with ignorance.
If you're going out to a bar with friends, take condoms. You may not need them--but someone else might.
Champion sex education classes. Real ones, where the real world is covered.
Be safe. This disease can be halted in its tracks. As much as I despise ACT UP for many of their tactics (including the current bullshit trying to suggest that HIV doesn't in fact cause AIDS), they did have one thing right: SILENCE = DEATH.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:04 AM on December 1, 2004
"Is it fair to persuade somebody that they face a choice between losing the chance of going to heaven and using a condom?... Even if it costs her life?"
"Yes. Maybe that is why you get martyrs."
- Cardinal Emmanual Wamala (Archbishop of Kampala, Ugana)
This is the part I most remember from Can Condoms Kill?, a BBC Panorama documentary that screened this year (transcript is online).
posted by AnnaRat at 4:21 AM on December 1, 2004
"Yes. Maybe that is why you get martyrs."
- Cardinal Emmanual Wamala (Archbishop of Kampala, Ugana)
This is the part I most remember from Can Condoms Kill?, a BBC Panorama documentary that screened this year (transcript is online).
posted by AnnaRat at 4:21 AM on December 1, 2004
Real stories of people around the world living with HIV/AIDS
posted by moonbird at 4:22 AM on December 1, 2004
posted by moonbird at 4:22 AM on December 1, 2004
Is there a World Diabetes Day?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:13 AM on December 1, 2004
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:13 AM on December 1, 2004
Parents, teach your kids about safer sex. Whether or not you believe in abstinence doesn't mean a thing: history has proven that where there's a will, there's a way. Don't kill your children with ignorance.
Well said, and thank you.
posted by PossumCowboy at 6:29 AM on December 1, 2004
Well said, and thank you.
posted by PossumCowboy at 6:29 AM on December 1, 2004
on the one hand there is reason to be happy that there is a regime of drug therapy that keeps people like magic johnson thriving. (although i wish i could write freddie mercury)
while on the other, it might well be better if everyone rich and poor alike suffered the agony of africa so that everyone would take the damned disease seriously.
like the button says, ignorance = death
posted by three blind mice at 6:59 AM on December 1, 2004
while on the other, it might well be better if everyone rich and poor alike suffered the agony of africa so that everyone would take the damned disease seriously.
like the button says, ignorance = death
posted by three blind mice at 6:59 AM on December 1, 2004
The Christian Science Monitor has a nice, short article.
posted by Captaintripps at 10:09 AM on December 1, 2004
posted by Captaintripps at 10:09 AM on December 1, 2004
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"1 in 157 people on the planet have the AIDS virus. Viewropa has created this banner that demonstrates the lottery effect of the indiscriminating AIDS virus. Every 157 times a page with the banner script is viewed, the AIDS banner appears. You could be the one to see it."
posted by nthdegx at 2:52 AM on December 1, 2004