World AIDS Day, a postscript

by: Jay Lassiter

Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 10:05:36 AM EST

When the Democrats regained the upperhand in the Senate, it had immeadiate and dramatic consequences for the fight against AIDS. No more slashing funds to pay for other priorities, no more ignoring science to promote a judgemental agenda, no worries about how I will afford the drugs that keep me from getting skinny and dying with lesions all over my face.

Anyway, surely ya'll all remember Ryan White, the young AIDS activist who's also the namesake of the Federal Program that funds AIDS/HIV psycho-social services for folks like me living with the disease. It probably comes as little surprise that the funding for HIV/AIDS has been less-than-robust for the last six years or so. That's why I'm so relieved to hear my Senator Bob Menendez serve notice that he'll stand up for me in the new dem-controlled Senate. (You'd be relieved too if your life depended on it.)

Bob Menendez wants a comprehensive bill that would expand funds for critical care. Menendez:

On World AIDS Day we should be celebrating the passage of comprehensive Ryan White CARE Act bill that provides critical care to all who suffer from HIV/AIDS. Instead, some continue to advance a so-called 'compromise bill' that would have disastrous implications on several states including New Jersey, and would slash millions in funds to the front-line care providers in our states. This cannot stand. I will continue good faith negotiations with my colleagues on this bill, however, I will not back down in my opposition to any legislation that imperils our New Jersey's ability to treat those with HIV/AIDS."

Sorry to harp on the HIV thing. I know it's morbid. But it's another 360-something days until the next World AIDS day and I wanted to squeeze in one last nugget while the iron is still kinda hot.

Jay Lassiter :: World AIDS Day, a postscript

Tags: HIV, AIDS, ryan white, Bob Menendez, (All Tags)

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World AIDS Day, a postscript | 2 comments

Morbid? (0.00 / 0)

It's not morbid! It's your reality and that of so many others. That you have the strength and the courage to even share and discuss it is amazing and will probably help someone else. You ROCK! Stay strong.

Illigitimi non carborundum... Ignorantia mater metus est. *** -There is no gray area in equality.

by: mwsavant @ Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 16:56:05 PM UTC

Cancer is a morbid subject, too. (4.00 / 1)

The word morbid comes from the latin morbidus, or diseased.

If you look at the human history of cancer and HIV/AIDS, they're actually very similar. Unlike AIDS, cancer has been around forever, but it really emerged in the last 100 years as medical advances against infectious diseases rendered them either less prevalent or less fatal. In some ways, the public perception of cancer in the 50's mirrored the public perception of AIDS in the 1980's. Dr. Jimmie Holland of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center describes the stigma society placed on Cancer patients in the middle of the 20th Century in her book The Human Side of Cancer:

Fanny Rosenow, who became a stalwart volunteer for the American Cancer Society in New York, told me of her experience. In the early 1950s, she and her friend Teresa Lasser had radical mastectomies for breast cancer at the same time. They talked with each other and shared their feelings, but they recognized that most other women had no one with whom to talk about their surgery. Sitting at Fanny's kitchen table, the women decided they would try to reach other women to provide a forum in which women could feel free to talk about having breast cancer. Both women were socially prominent New Yorkers, and Ms. Rosenow felt that a notice in the New York Times was the best way to announce such a meeting for women with breast cancer. When she called the Times, she was put through to the society editor. Her request to place an ad to announce a meeting about breast cancer for women was followed by a long pause. "I'm sorry, Ms. Rosenow, but the Times cannot publish the word breast or the word cancer Perhaps you could say there will be a meeting about diseases of the chest wall." Ms. Rosenow hung up in disgust.

History's lesson is that we cannot effectively fight any disease until we have an honest and open discussion about it. Many cancer survivors like Fanny Rosenow and Lance Armstrong and HIV-positive people like Magic Johnson feel obliged to spread such discussion. They want to keep the iron hot as long as these diseases affect humanity.

by: Scott Weingart @ Sat Dec 02, 2006 at 19:58:21 PM UTC