Thursday, December 1, 2011

Have you ever had the flu, chicken pox, or measles? Nobody ever asked to get infected with any of these viruses. Nobody has ever asked to get infected with the HIV virus either. One in five people in the US carries the HIV virus and doesn't even know it. You can't treat what you don't know. If you are young and healthy and your friends look young and healthy, it would not even cross your mind that any of them may have the virus. Today is December, the month of HIV and AIDS awareness, as next year is the 30-year anniversary of AIDS awareness, and already celebrities and influential politicians are discussing how to move forward

We all have friends, acquaintances, colleagues, employees, or family members who have been infected and died from AIDS. Were they gay? Were they IV drug abusers? As a doctor, I only cared about these questions when I wondered if my patients could have additional infections, such as other sexually transmitted diseases if they were gay or had hepatitis, in either case. As a friend, I have seen friends fade away in shame when they were infected during a surgical procedure in a major US hospital in the early nineties. I also recall the mother of a friend of my daughter's shyly asking me about whether or not she should allow her young daughter to bathe together with another young girl, who was HIV positive and who had lost her mom to the disease. A disease that affects anyone who encounters with the virus, stigma kills more than the disease itself. Married men with occasional gay encounters on the side will avoid talking about their bisexuality even in the privacy of their doctor's visit. If they don't talk about it, they won't be tested either.

Thankfully, many of our friends, acquaintances, colleagues, employees, and family members have survived and thrived in spite of their HIV infections. Some are outstanding individuals who have come forward and discussed their situations to help the public at large. Take Juan Carlos Riascos, for example. I had the pleasure of meeting him during a Miami/Los Angeles flight. Chatting away for five hours with this amazing individual was a unique experience. Juan Carlos is author of Labyrinth of Hope, where he tells his story as a well-to-do heir of a prominent wealthy family who discovers, in horror, that his young wife has full-blown AIDS and will die. To add to his nightmare, he's also told that he and their infant daughter are also infected. In desperation, he tries everything he possibly can to save his daughter. Although his wife passed away twenty years ago, his daughter has grown up to be an amazing young lady. Instead of living in hiding, Juan Carlos came forward and became a prominent educator on HIV. This didn't go well with several family members who distanced themselves in disbelief that one of them would come forward with such a shameful disease. Multilingual, he has educated thousands of people across the United States in English, Spanish, and French.

Have no shame. Straight, gay, man, woman, child, teen, drug addict, prostitute, wife, husband, son, daughter, HIV affects all of us. Let's help fight the stigma of HIV so that we can eradicate this disease from the surface of the planet.