Cure ignorance

Members of the UK charity and HIV/AIDS sexual health service the Terrence Higgins Trust consider themselves the people who “piss on everyone’s chips” when it comes to discussing a cure, writer and employee Will Harris says.

This fantastic PinkNews post for World AIDS Day explores how numerous cures for HIV/AIDS, touted to be just around the corner, are usually a case of researchers getting ahead of themselves. Harris acknowledges massive strides in our understanding of the virus, accomplishments in the path for a cure, and smaller changes in institutional attitudes. At the same time, these scattershot victories don’t add up to a cure, nor do they paint a perfect picture. For example, Harris writes, “Our new survey of people with HIV reported almost half had encountered someone who believed a cure already exists.”

Among the many multilayered complexities of global HIV/AIDS issues, the criminalization of HIV nondisclosure is the law in Canada, and Canadian Blood Services still maintains a byzantine blood ban on men who have sex with men (notions that they have “lifted” the ban are as disgusting as the policy itself).

Hope is important, but blind optimism is dangerous; HIV/AIDS remains a worldwide problem. We all need to constantly educate ourselves about HIV/AIDS issues, spread awareness of safer-sex practices, and fight stigma for people living with HIV and AIDS . . . and to do that we will always need someone to“piss on everyone’s chips.”