[Viva] HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma - News - Times Colonist
Romari
romariundi at gmail.com
Wed Sep 4 20:13:37 PDT 2013
great idea good exposure but we should handle it well and not simply out of disgust :)
Romari
On Sep 4, 2013, at 6:53 PM, CHARLENE ANDERSON <pickles4 at shaw.ca> wrote:
> I totally agree with Denise on this one.
> Char
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> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Denise Becker" <dbecker106 at gmail.com>
> To: "viva" <viva at lists.resist.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 8:57:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [Viva] HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma - News - Times Colonist
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> The executive may want to consider writing this reply if there is no objection from anyone. It would be good to have it come from ViVA and get our name out there as a group of positive women who can be contacted for an interview.
> D
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> On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 8:18 AM, anne bonner < thewoodbuffalo at gmail.com > wrote:
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> Um er let me think about it. When did this article come out? Does it have to be written right away? I'm not so good at these things...
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> On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Romari < romariundi at gmail.com > wrote:
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> That is a good idea Anne … are you up for it?
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> On Aug 27, 2013, at 10:37 AM, anne bonner < thewoodbuffalo at gmail.com > wrote:
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> Also agreed. Does anyone feel like writing a letter to the editor? That would be a great venue to clear this issue up. Because if they are going to continue writing articles about HIV they need to learn some sensitivity about the issue.
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> Anne
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> On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Margarite Sanchez < margaritesanchez at gmail.com > wrote:
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> Agreed! It is the old puritanical ethics showing ... and that kind of language implies that some people with HIV are guilty and others are innocent. M
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> On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Romari < romariundi at gmail.com > wrote:
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> Thank you Denise for bringing this article to my attention.
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> I don't get the Times Colonist but after reading this, I recalled someone mentioned to me that they too had read something about HIV in the aboriginal community recently. I have now done a search and there has been a whole series on HIV in the Times Colonist! It is great that they are giving it this much attention and from several angles.
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> However, I agree with your point about promiscuity! So very irritating that they can write these articles to inform people and hope to reduce stigma and yet mess up there!
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> Romari
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> On Aug 25, 2013, at 8:15 PM, Denise Becker < dbecker106 at gmail.com > wrote:
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> While I think this is a great article, I do not like this paragraph:
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> The fair-haired, fit-looking woman is a divorced mother with two healthy children, holds a good job and owns her home. She is a heterosexual woman who had none of traditional risk factors for HIV, such as intravenous-drug use or promiscuity, when she was diagnosed.
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> Since when has "promiscuity" been one of the traditional risk factors for a heterosexual woman? I would think that a traditional risk factor was having sex, not necessarily promiscuity!!!!
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> Denise
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> On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Margarite Sanchez < margaritesanchez at gmail.com > wrote:
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> If you haven't come across this article yet ...
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> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Roy Parish < royparish at shaw.ca >
> Date: Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 9:10 AM
> Subject: HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma - News - Times Colonist
> To: Margarite Sanchez < margaritesanchez at gmail.com >
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> Hello Margi
> Hope all is well with you and Alvaro.
> Spotted this on FB and thought you, of all the friends I know, would relate.
> Luv
> R
> xo
> 29c today in Vancouver. Fantabulosa, bring it on. I bet your 'girls' are thriving.
>
> http://www.timescolonist.com/news/hiv-aids-series-island-woman-s-life-marked-by-stigma-1.571638
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> HIV/AIDS series: Island woman's life marked by stigma
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> A3-0807-hiv-clr.jpg
> Nicole, now 30, was diagnosed with HIV at 21. Although she would like to help combat the stigma attached to HIV, she keeps her illness a secret from many in her life. Photograph by: DARREN STONE, Times Colonist
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> At age 30, Nicole could be a poster woman for good looks and good health — except for one issue she feels compelled to keep secret.
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> While her family and close friends know, she is very careful about telling others that, at age 21, she was diagnosed with HIV.
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> The fair-haired, fit-looking woman is a divorced mother with two healthy children, holds a good job and owns her home. She is a heterosexual woman who had none of traditional risk factors for HIV, such as intravenous-drug use or promiscuity, when she was diagnosed.
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> She’d love to let us use her last name to help lambaste the deep stigmas that still exist about HIV, the lack of knowledge about how controllable it is and how hard it would be for women like her to transmit the virus. But as the sole support of her family and with a boss who has no idea of her status, she just can’t risk it.
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> Nicole is deeply disturbed by the ungrounded belief in easy transmission that is still widespread in society. Even some close friends aren’t keen on her borrowing a hairbrush, or sipping from the same glass.
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> “Having this stigma is so anguishing,” she said. “It takes some of the quality from my life.” Devastating diagnosis
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> She has no idea whether the man who passed HIV to her had any idea he was infected. She found out as a result of routine blood work about 10 years ago. She was so devastated her family doctor had to drive her home. She was sick at the thought she might never be able to have kids or, worse, faced imminent death.
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> Nicole managed to get on with her life. She met her husband, who was also HIV positive, online. Neither of their children has HIV.
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> Now divorced, Nicole’s deepest wish is to find a partner, a father figure for her children and a husband unafraid to love her. She has experienced devastating setbacks on that score. She dated two men and, in each case, when the time seemed right, she worked up the courage to them about her status. She explained that experts in the field have assured her that there is almost no chance she can transmit HIV to others. But, within 24 hours, each man dropped contact with her.
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> That made her feel “discardable,” she said.
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> “My body has not been affected by [HIV], nor is it expected to. It’s actually expected to be unaffected for the rest of my life. But my spirit and my heart have been.”
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> That’s why, she said, she wants to fight stigma around HIV. New treatment, new hope
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> The B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS also wants to get out the word that taking HAART — a landmark mixture of highly active anti-retroviral therapy — reduces the level of HIV in the blood and sexual fluids to undetectable levels, dramatically decreasing the likelihood of HIV transmission, said Kevin Hollett, the centre’s communications co-ordinator.
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> HIV transmission by heterosexual contact accounted for about 22 per cent of the 238 new HIV cases in B.C. in 2012 — or about 52 new cases, down from 75 in 2011.
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> That’s far less than the 63 per cent transmitted by men having unprotected sex with men, but nearly double the 12 per cent transmission rate via intravenous-drug use, according to figures from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
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> There’s no reason for Nicole not to have a healthy sexual relationship without fear of transmitting HIV, said Dr. Julio Montaner, one of the world’s pre-eminent HIV/AIDS experts.
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> Montaner, a professor of medicine at the University of B.C., said that thanks to HAART — a therapy that he helped develop — Nicole’s viral load is undetectable and, as such, it is not possible for her to transmit HIV to others.
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> The virus that was often death sentence when Nicole was a child is now a chronic illness that can be well managed in many people.
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> “Twenty years ago, a woman infected with HIV at age 20 would be told, ‘Sorry, you have a disease that is going to kill you prematurely, you’re going to have a very rocky course ahead, you are basically not going to have a normal reproductive life,’ ” Montaner said.
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> “Today, a 20-year-old woman who comes to my office for the first time and has an HIV diagnosis, yes, it’s a problem, but we have a strategy. The treatments are highly effective, they are simple, they are formulated into one pill once a day, most of the time.”
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> A 20-year-old woman diagnosed today with HIV and given anti-retroviral drugs can expect to live in good health until the age of 73, Montaner said. He’s hesitant to call it a normal life-span “because anything that requires treatment, by definition, is not normal. But I usually [say] near-normal longevity and a very high quality of life.”
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> Twenty years ago, Montaner would have had to advise Nicole not to have children. Now he can say, “You will be there to nurture your children and you will be there to see your grandchildren.”
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> Moreover, B.C. Women’s Hospital researchers have developed a drug regimen that has prevented births of any HIV-positive babies in B.C. in the last 15 years to HIV-positive mothers who underwent a full anti-retroviral regime. The toll of stigma
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> Even though Nicole has a nice life by anyone’s standards — something that can’t be said of impoverished injection-drug users, for instance — the HIV stigma must take a toll on her well-being, said Katrina Jensen, executive director of AIDS Vancouver Island.
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> “You can’t underestimate the impact that stigma and discrimination have on someone’s health … no matter how privileged they may seem. If they’re part of a group that experiences a lot of stigma, that is bad for their health,” Jensen said.
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> As a woman in her childbearing years, Nicole only recently began to take medication — four pills a day. She continues to have routine blood work done to monitor her T-cell counts and viral load.
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> “Now that I’m on medication, it is likely I will have undetectable viral load for the rest of my life,” she said.
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> As her children grow up, Nicole doesn’t want them to feel there’s something wrong or shameful about their family. They’re too young to understand the implications of HIV. She regrets she can’t use her surname to defy the stigma and help normalize HIV. She’s got a mortgage to pay, kids to support, a job to do and a public image she doesn’t want to tarnish by untruths. She’s not willing to be “a sacrificial lamb,” but she wants people to remember her story when they hear about someone living with HIV.
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> kdedyna at timescolonist.com A look at the numbers
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> • Number of people in Canada living with HIV, including those with AIDS, in 2011: 71,300
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> • Number of people in Canada living with HIV, including those with AIDS, in 2008: 64,000
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> • Number of people in B.C. living with HIV in 2011: 11,700
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> • Number of people in B.C. with AIDS in 2011: 70
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> • Number of people on Vancouver Island living with HIV in 2012: 888
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> • Number of new HIV infections in Canada in 2011: 3,175
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> • Number of new HIV infections in B.C. in 2012: 238
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> • Number of new HIV diagnoses on Vancouver Island, from 2008 to 2012: 159
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> • Rate of new HIV infections in Canada in 2011: 7.6 per 100,000 people
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> • Rate of new HIV infections in B.C. in 2012: 5.2 per 100,000
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> • Rate of new HIV infections on Vancouver Island, from 2008 to 2012: 4.2 per 100,000
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> • Rate of new HIV infections on Vancouver Island in 2012: 3.4 per 100,000
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> • Percentage of cases in B.C. in 2012 in which HIV transmission caused by:
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> - gay, bisexual contact: 63
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> - heterosexual contact: 22
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> - intravenous-drug use: 12
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> • Annual cost of HAART anti-retroviral treatment: $15,600
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> • Lifetime cost of HAART anti-retroviral treatment: $500,000
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> • Number of HIV blood screens done on pregnant women in B.C. in 2011: 46,910
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> • Number of HIV-positive babies born in last 15 years to mothers who underwent full anti-HIV drug therapy: 0
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> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in B.C. in 2011: 59
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> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in B.C. in 1996: 253
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> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in Canada in 2009: 355
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> • Annual deaths due to AIDS in Canada in 1995: 1,764
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> Sources: B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Statistics Canada, Vancouver Island Health Authority and B.C. Centre for Disease Control, B.C. Women’s Hospital & Health Centre Foundation
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> © Copyright 2013
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