World AIDS Day

5 people die of AIDS every minute.

Every. Minute.

According to UNAIDS, there are now 39.5 million people living with HIV, including 2.3 million children, and during 2006 some 4.3 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

There is still no cure for AIDS. The best method is prevention. Just because there are antiretrovirals now does not mean that HIV/AIDS are “no big deal”. It is a very big deal.

Know The Facts!

There are four ways to get HIV:

1. Unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected partner (the most common);

2. Sharing needles or other contaminated injection or skin-piercing equipment;

3. Blood and blood products through, for example, infected transfusions and organ or tissue transplants;

4. Transmission from infected mother to child in the womb or at birth and breastfeeding.

Condoms are the only form of contraception that will protect you from HIV.


The theme for World AIDS Day 2006 is Accountability. Watch their 8 minute video Stop AIDS - What Will You Do? More information is available here. How much do you know about HIV/AIDS? Take the quiz. See the Memorial Quilt. Check out the Red Campaign and Red Blog. Check your local papers for World AIDS Day events where you live.

Res says:

Here’s my World AIDS Day message: Regardless of whatever advances of medical science may or may not occur, the AIDS epidemic could be halted in its tracks by the right “cocktail” of political will and cultural change. The plain truth is that the mighty and powerful of this world care not one bit if fags and brown people die by the millions, as they would prefer not to share their planet with us anyway. As long as patriarchy endures, HIV will never be stopped or cured, although many big bucks will undoubtedly be made with clever new “treatments” that only have to be taken once a day! Forever!

Conversely, the moment the human race decides that life is more important that religion or culture, that health matters more than gender roles, and that survival is more important than Teh SeXxXXy, the spread of AIDS will end.

[...]

Also: fight the patriarchy that classes some people as sexual service providers for other people. Fight the patriarchy that makes sex everything — or the worst thing ever. Fight the patriarchy that makes young gay boys believe that they’re doomed anyway, so they might as well get their infection over with. Fight the patriarchy that makes married men believe that they’re automatically entitled to fuck their wives..and whoever else they feel like sticking it into. Fight the patriarchy that makes women, gay men, and non-whites invisible and disposable people. Fight it every day, everywhere, in every way you can.

Fight people like these assholes.