Tag Archives: HIV prevention

Ineffectual Advertising: The New York Board of Health Uses Scare Tactics to Tell People to Stay HIV Free and Use Condoms

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I don’t have all that much to say about the NYC Board of Health’s HIV-prevention advertisement, because I’ve said it all before. It’s pretty disheartening to see powerful organizations using fear to get a message across.

But, anyway, here’s a short schpiel.

This advertisement is completely ineffectual. This might sound inflammatory, but I’m deeply offended by this ad, and see no other way to respond to it except to be direct. All it does is attempt to instill fear into its viewers.

So lets go over this frame by frame. “When you get HIV, it’s never just HIV,” a scary deep voice tells us. “You’re at risk for dozens of diseases even if you take medication.”

First of all, that is a blatant oversimplification of any factual data about HIV. HIV does effect the immune system, which can potentially put an individual at risk for other diseases. However it is not as simple as ‘you are at risk even if you take medication.’ Because, to steal a catchphrase, HIV isn’t just HIV. It’s not a virus that manifests itself the same way in every HIV positive person.

And next we have close up images of the potential diseases you will contract! Osteoporosis! Dementia! And, in all of its bloody glory… ANAL CANCER!

Because everyone that has HIV also has anal cancer.

And, the final frame: “Stay HIV free. Always use a condom.” Good advice, but I barely noticed it.

OH! And! Everyone who is at risk for HIV is male. Clearly. I’m surprised that all of the men weren’t wearing rainbow pins to remind us that HIV is a gay disease, too.

The real kicker for me  is that on YouTube the advertisement is filed under the category of “education.” There is nothing educational about this video. It’s a scare tactic that reinforces the stereotype that being HIV positive means your life is over and you will never be able to lead a fulfilling life. Sure, it tells its viewers to always use a condom, but how about reinforcing that with facts about barrier methods rather than with pictures of bloody anuses?



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What Does the Berlin Patient Mean for a Future of HIV?

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photo of timothy ray brown cured of HIV AIDS in berlin photographs pictures

I’m sure that by now, most of you have heard about the ‘Berlin Patient’ who was cured of his HIV. An exciting development in the search for a cure, though one to be realistic about for sure.

Timothy Ray Brown, an American man who was being treated for leukemia in Berlin back in 2007, is now living HIV free after an extremely intensive treatment.

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Are Teenaged Girls the Key to Solving the HIV Epidemic in Developing Countries?

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President of the women’s-empowerment-centered Nike Foundation Maria Eitel recently wrote an interesting article for the Huffington Post, in which she presents the idea that HIV prevention strategies in developing countries should be focused more on adolescent girls.

She begins by discussing the new vaginal microbicidal gel that has been shown in studies to reduce transmission of the HIV virus by up to fifty percent. What I really appreciate about her mention of this potentially revolutionizing medical technology, though, is that she doesn’t just stop there — she wisely acknowledges that the mere existence of such a gel is not a solution. It is just a first step.

She says:

… While the gel is a useful first step to build on, how do we go beyond access to medical solutions and also address other underlying issues that make girls particularly vulnerable and heighten their risk of contracting HIV? Girls struggle to negotiate condom use, are vulnerable to sexual violence, lack access to prevention information and are more likely to use transactional sex to support themselves — how can we ensure that these vulnerabilities surrounding HIV are tackled as well?

And you know what?  I could not agree more. The existence of contraceptives and other medical preventatives such as this gel are not enough to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic in developing countries. Eitel is asking necessary questions here (which is unsurprising, given her position at the Nike Foundation), and yet, we’re still asking ourselves, “what’s the real root of the problem? What are the deep, underlying issues that are perpetuating the spread of HIV?” It’s not just about accessible contraception, though of course that is still important, but what it is is ensuring that girls (and anyone else, really) know how to take care of themselves, and are aware of what can make them vulnerable to transmission of the virus.

Eitel goes on to say:

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New Vaginal Gel a Possible Breakthrough in Slowing AIDS Epidemic

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The International AIDS Conference, currently underway in Vienna, has some positive news to report in the fight against rampant spreading of the disease. Researchers announced their development of a vaginal gel that reduces a woman’s chances of contracting AIDS through sexual intercourse. Although AIDS is not the fairly immediate death sentence it once was in many countries, it is still a terrible epidemic in parts of the world. This can only be good news.

The gel, which contains the antiretroviral drug tenofovir, is both colorless and odorless. It’s inserted into the vagina (I’m visualizing this as a combination between tampons and Monistat) both before and after sexual intercourse, and the only side effect noted to date is mild diarrhea, which seems a small price to pay in the great scheme of things.

From CTV:

Women in South Africa who volunteered to test the gel cut their chances of contracting the virus by 50 per cent after one year of use and 39 per cent after 2 1/2 years, compared to a gel that contained no medicine.

The researchers also discovered that the gel cut in half the chances of getting HSV-2, the virus that causes genital herpes.
Scientists call the gel a breakthrough in the search for a way to help women whose partners refuse to use condoms.

“We are giving hope to women,” Michel Sidibe, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s UNAIDS program, said in a statement. A gel could “help us break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic,” he said.

Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, called it a “historic day for HIV prevention research.”

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