Five Steps to an AIDS-Free Future
In recent years, we’ve dramatically increased access to HIV treatment and prevention. Rates of HIV infection are slowing in many communities. There is much less fear, and much more hope.
But the fight isn’t over. Not when 50,000 people contract the virus each year in the U.S. alone. Not when one in six HIV-positive Americans are unaware that they even carry the virus. Not when the communities most affected by AIDS continue to face oppressive stigma here in the United States, and around the world.
World AIDS Day is an opportunity to celebrate our advances. But it is also a time to recommit to eradicating AIDS. It won’t be easy, but it is truly possible. An AIDS-free future is well within our reach. We can make it a reality by following five steps.
1. Get tested
Getting tested for HIV is the first step to beating the AIDS epidemic. And yet, a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation last year indicated that more than half of gay men had not been tested in the past year. Thirty percent have never been tested at all!
The Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) is supporting global efforts to increase awareness and access to testing, with a particular focus on the Caribbean and the southern United States, where stigma is fueling a rise in HIV infection rates.
There are still hundreds of thousands of people in the United States living with HIV, completely unaware that they have the virus. Through outreach and testing, we can slow the spread of the epidemic.
Even in the gay community, where AIDS has been particularly devastating and well publicized, we need to inform a new generation about the importance of getting tested and knowing your status.
2. Talk about health with your friends and family
We need to get in the habit of talking about our healthcare decisions with our loved ones and with our doctors. Being honest and open with one another makes it easier to talk about getting tested and, if necessary, getting on treatment.
For example, only a quarter of the gay men surveyed by the Kaiser Family Foundation had heard of PrEP, the new drug that can help prevent HIV infections for those particularly at risk.[i] The only way those who can benefit will hear about PrEP, though, is if we have open and honest conversations about our health.
If we bring the usually taboo conversation about healthcare to the table, we can begin to shed the stigma surrounding sexually transmitted diseases like HIV.
3. Be honest about sex and drugs
I’m proud to say that I’ve been sober since 1992. But there was a time when drugs and alcohol consumed my life. I badly needed help, and I was lucky enough to get it before it was too late, thanks to many loving friends and a few kind strangers, too.
It’s difficult to talk about drugs, especially in a society where all drug users are considered criminals. People who use drugs don’t need incarceration — they need help.
And those who inject drugs in particular need clean needles. The federal government has a longstanding ban against using federal funds for needle exchange programs.[ii] But that ban ignores the factual reality of fighting HIV. Each year, several thousand people contract HIV through sharing needles. These infections are entirely preventable — but only if we change the conversation about drugs in America.
4. Speak out against stigma
We’ll never put an end to debates about drug use, sex and sexuality, incarceration, who pays for healthcare, and other issues. But we can end the stigma that prevents us from helping drug users, gay men, sex workers, criminals, and other marginalized communities at risk of HIV infection. We can be more compassionate.
Our biggest goal at EJAF is to eradicate the stigma and shame that perpetuates AIDS in these high-risk communities. That’s why we’ve raised over $300 million to fund life-saving education, support, and services where they’re needed most.
5. Think big
It’s a crucial time in the fight against AIDS. Our world is more interconnected than ever before. The fear and misinformation that stemmed from the spread of Ebola in recent months has only made our interconnectedness more apparent. Epidemics have no borders — that much is clear.
That’s why we must fight AIDS in every community — not only close to home, and not only where the fight is easiest or most convenient. Right now, if you live below the poverty line in a low-income urban area, you’re twice as likely to become infected with HIV.[iii] And 50 percent of all new HIV cases in America are in the south.[iv]
We need a national, unified response to HIV/AIDS. That’s the only way we’ll ever beat this epidemic.
Ryan White once said that people are afraid of what they do not know. There is truth in that.
Today, however, nearly 25 years after Ryan’s death, we know HIV/AIDS. We know it’s claimed over 36 million lives.
But we also know that we have the ability to treat every single person infected with HIV. We know that we can give people who are HIV-positive the chance to live with dignity. The cure for a disease fueled by inequality is an abundance of compassion. It’s that simple, really.
In the future, my dream is that World AIDS Day will be an occasion not only to remember those we have lost, but also to celebrate a compassionate world — a world free of AIDS.
Footnotes
[i] Gay and Bisexual Men See HIV as the Top Health Issue Facing Their Community, But Majorities Are Not Personally Worried About Getting Infected & Not Getting Tested Regularly.
[ii] Federal Funding Ban on Needle Exchange Programs.
[iii] New CDC Analysis Reveals Strong Link Between Poverty and HIV Infection.
[iv] Southern states are now epicenter of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
