you can Almost overlook the crucial Moment in the fight against HIV and Aids in the World Aids Museum. It takes you through the history of the HI-Virus’ and it triggered the disease Aids. The Museum is located in Fort Lauderdale, in South Florida, is the only one in the world to this this topic. Important events from the USA and around the world are listed, and the number of Aids-deceased Americans. Their development, however, only one direction: upwards. Suddenly, however, the number stagnates, then declines.
The turning point falls in the year 1996. Among the pieces on display this year in bright red and green decorated Cover of Time Magazine. Visitors are able to look a Person in the face, the sunglasses, the image of a research monitor. As a “Man of the Year” is the Time-editorial Board, David Ho, the “Aids researchers”, as it says on the statement.
Today is HIV is medically manageable
The reason for the honor: His research have essentially driven the development of the combination therapy described medication cocktails. Since this was introduced in 1996, applies to HIV as a medically manageable. Patients under successful therapy can no longer infect others. Certain active ingredients are taken as a preventive measure, an infection, and even prevent.
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a Good 35 years after Doctors in 1982, then-enigmatic diseases among gay men in New York and San Francisco have observed that will HIV and Aids on the theme for museums and archives. The focus of their collections is usually on the first Phase of the epidemic, which ended with the introduction of the combination therapy.
shame and Stigma: 17 years, he told only his Partner
In the years before, a positive result meant an HIV Test for most patients in shock: they Feared, however, the judgment would be tantamount to a death. As long as there were no effective drugs, could Doctors to delay the progression of the disease. Some HIV-Positive, tried to hide their infection. Steve Stagon knows, this time from my own experience. In 1989, his Doctors informed the later founder of the World Aids Museum that he is HIV-positive. “For seventeen years I’ve been apart from my Partner no one tells,” he recalls. Against better knowledge, he had the feeling to be a danger to all the people around him.
As he lost as a result of the infection on weight, he made, in addition to a strict diet. “So I could say to myself and others that I took from the only reason,” he says. With such avoidance strategies Stagon not stand alone, as the Museum displays. Also, the Pianist and the show’s star Liberace justified his Aids due weight decrease in order that he make a “watermelon diet”. This is exactly the insidious thing about self-stigma, says Stagon. “You do things that are not good for you.”
Only in a self-help group, he learned to accept the infection
it was Only when he joined in 2006, a self-help group, he learned to accept his infection. From discussions there, the idea to operate by means of a Museum’s educational work. “Although at that time already many millions of people were as a result of Aids died, there was still no Museum of this kind,” he says. “Instead, many rumors and misunderstandings that were in circulation. But we wanted to tell the actual story of HIV and Aids.“
Because of incorrect information about the Transmission pathways of the Virus is often the way. For this hatred as well as discrimination of self by other. Also Stagon has not been treated by Doctors and dentists, although any risk of Transmission, as long as the normal standards of hygiene are adhered to. HIV-Positive lost their Jobs and their homes, sometimes Known and the family broke off the contact. “HIV-positive friends of mine was forbidden to hug your nieces and nephews or their grandchildren.”
Famous poster: “Silence = Death”
to make The result of this forms of exclusion: Often people have avoided high-risk situations, a HIV-Test. “Silence = Death”, Silence leads to death, therefore, is the core statement of a famous poster of the Initiative Act Up, which is also seen in the Museum.
Also in Germany, the first Phase of the history of HIV and Aids is an increasingly important subject for scholars, archives, and museums. Because it is precisely in this first Phase of the social dealing with the Virus and it triggered disease has left traces, says Axel Schock, co-initiator of the Berlin working group “Aids-history to the Museum”. He says: “The public Talk about sexuality dealing with homosexuality, issues such as grief, culture, patient rights, or the hospice movement, all of this has developed under the terms of the HIV epidemic.” Therefore, the research increases the interest of younger scientists who want to analyze what exactly is happening at the time actually.
Also in Berlin, the historical research
starts at the same time a lot of Knowledge threatens to be lost because the Generation of the first Phase of HIV-Affected dies, warns shock. The working group has therefore taken on the task to preserve as many of the materials. Unlike the Museum in Fort Lauderdale, he turns to a professional public, and brings together the estate of donors with archives. “We want to raise awareness, so private and seemingly mundane things will not be disposed of,” says shock. In addition, participants of the working group have also led to self-interviews, and in cooperation with the Humboldt-University a total of ten linear metres of archival materials.
Often drama to be found including tables stories: From the mother of a child, was infected via blood products with HIV and died. Or a drug addict, the should be prohibited in the prison and even medical assistance. “From this action, the uncertainty of language certainly. But it was also a failure of the prison authorities and of society as a whole“, writes of a shock with a view to the Statements made by politicians such as Peter Gauweiler (CSU), the time for the compulsory registration and Isolation of HIV-Positive occurred.
“the Knowledge of the people remained in the horror of the time”
All, medical advances, in Spite of is the social image of HIV from this early stage, argues the author and Journalist Martin Reichert in his new book, “The capsule”, in which he deals with the history of Aids in Germany. “The Knowledge of the people remained in this Horror.”
most of the images that became the icons are from this Phase. Lady Di, for example, which was in the year 1987, in a hospital ward, HIV-Positive, the Hand without a glove, and thus an important sign against fear and exclusion. Or, the American film star Rock Hudson, made in 1985, after unsuccessful treatment in Paris, his infection to the public and anyone found who was willing to put up with him in a plane, to his assistant, rented and finally a Jumbo jet for a quarter of a million dollars. Even if Hudson was a victim of ignorance and discrimination, was the topic on the front pages of Newspapers and magazines, and led shortly thereafter to the first Aids fundraiser.
In the last Phase in the fight against HIV
so, one could argue, we approach now the third – and possibly last – Phase in the fight against HIV. With the help of medication, the infection chain can be interrupted early on. But the prejudices and Fears of the first Phase. In Germany alone, around 10,000 people without their Knowledge with the HI-Virus, estimates of the Robert Koch Institute. Until Aids breaks out, not many even have the idea that they might be infected, because they do not hold Aids to be a disease that affects you.
Others fear the reactions of their environment, and delay, therefore, Test, doctor visits, or even the beginning of the therapy – it might discover someone, the packs of the drugs. So the fight against the Stigma remains one of the most pressing tasks of the HIV prevention work.
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Susanne Thunder
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