HIV: Denial is not Action

Our theme this week has been HIV and our support of the effort to raise awareness in time for National HIV Testing Day. This is an annual event to raise awareness for HIV. Getting tested is important and in many walks of life this is a common and frequent health check. If you have been single for a long time and are embarking on a new long term relationship, it’s sensible to be sure that this subject is not taboo. This year it fell on June 27.

Obviously the first step is to as far as possible prevent getting infected in the first instance. There are many things that you can do, sensible precautions to protect yourself from HIV. Most are common sense, but some are things that people shy away from, like having in depth discussions about previous sexual partners, for fear of causing offense. If more people took this seriously a lot of misery and suffering could be avoided.

News sources like AIDS.gov exist to distribute information about the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide a forum for government strategies to combat the disease. Being aware of initiatives can help you to get involved with helping to shape legislation and the politics of HIV. As the old saying goes, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.

The statistics about the spread of HIV in the United States are almost too huge to comprehend, and they are not shrinking at all. Awareness helps, and of course prevention and testing, but fundraising and getting involved, even if your life hasn’t been touched by HIV, is a responsibility we can all share.

Although treatments exist for HIV, there is no cure. Efforts to find one are painfully underfunded for some reason, partially the stigma of HIV but partly because people don’t want to talk about it. Be the person who doesn’t mind talking about it, and promote honest and open debate among your friends and family.

Here is a lists of some of our other blog posts on HIV.


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