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I've been reflecting on #ItsASin over the past week. As we've come to expect from @russelldavies63 it's a truly fantastic piece of drama, brilliantly performed. Skilfully crafted, threaded with humour, fear, anger and sadness. Heartbreaking scenes showing how it felt to see...
die around you to a deadly disease that took the government, health professionals and society to wake up to. As a teenager in the 80s, wondering about my sexuality, being bombarded with negative and frightening images, news and pure ignorance, was tough. The prog took me...
right back to that time in the mid/late 80s in particular. Like so many, I thought getting AIDS was a death sentence (and of course it was for many in those days). Imagine thinking that that was a real possibility. Probably hard to fathom today. It being seen as a "gay disease"..
has been so damaging, which persists today. I'm proud of the LGBT+ community that has led the campaign for decades but I wonder how much straight people think about it. I wonder how much consideration HIV/AIDS was given by those growing up in the 80s/90s.
It's interesting that this drama has been produced and aired in the middle of another pandemic. I'm absolutely not undermining COVID but for 40 years there's been a different pandemic, killing over 30 million people worldwide. With the incredible advances in treatments over...
the years, including PrEP which is now essentially protection from the virus, things are looking up. But it's take decades, and there's still stigma. Worldwide infection rates are reducing. AIDS-related deaths have reduced by 60% since the peak in 2004 but 690k died in 2019.
In the UK there are around 101,00 people living with HIV. In 2019, 4,139 people were diagnosed with HIV in the UK - 37% of whom were heterosexual. So, despite the huge reductions in transmission and antiretroviral therapies, HIV/AIDS is most definitely still around.
If we take a global perspective - it is so so much worse, particularly across Africa. There is still so much global inequality - as we are seeing in relation to COVID immunisation too. Some concluding thoughts (and calling on HR here too given my network)...
1. What are organisations doing to help breakdown the stigma of HIV/AIDS?
2. How are orgs helping people to be open about their status, so that they can support people, appropriately and where necessary?
3. Are behaviours and polices consistent with the organisation's Values?
2. How are orgs helping people to be open about their status, so that they can support people, appropriately and where necessary?
3. Are behaviours and polices consistent with the organisation's Values?
4. How are orgs using their CSR to help tackle HIV/AIDS - domestically or globally?
Hopefully #ItsASin has nudged, jolted and encouraged people to think this subject in a way many may not have done. I think it struggles to get airtime but it's still very much with us.
Hopefully #ItsASin has nudged, jolted and encouraged people to think this subject in a way many may not have done. I think it struggles to get airtime but it's still very much with us.
