HIV and AIDS still needs to be at forefront of U.S. health concerns

Nearly 30 years ago, big cities across the nation were seeing high numbers of a strange "cancer" that mostly infected men who had sex with men, and intravenous drug users. In the nearly three decades since the "cancer" we now know as HIV/AIDS has been in this country and abroad, it has taken the lives and the spirit of many individuals. It has rocked the soul of communities in the United States and across the globe. It has become the virus we know of, but still find taboo to talk about. It has become the virus we think we can handle.

In the mid 1990s, life-saving anti-retroviral medication and therapy was significant in reducing the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and since then, it has helped to lessen the fears and hysteria of HIV infection. In effect, the public saw HIV/AIDS as a virus that had no longer become an immediate threat. With increased knowledge of transmission methods and how to protect against it, HIV/AIDS was an afterthought in Americans' lives. There would be a lingering stigma still associated with HIV/AIDS; a significant amount of people still saw HIV/AIDS as a virus that infected just homosexuals and junkies.

So when World AIDS Day comes around every year on this day, I am reminded of how far the United States has come in education and prevention. But I am also reminded how we are still lacking in understanding that HIV/AIDS is a virus that affects everyone and can infect anyone. HIV/AIDS has become the virus that is a controllable death sentence. While it might not immediately kill us, it can shave years off our lives and decrease the quality of our lives. The complacency around HIV/AIDS has seen changing attitudes about how much individuals feel at risk for being infected. A study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation this past April saw that Americans are less likely to hear about the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic, which affects one's ability to understand how much of a risk HIV/AIDS is for them. For the generation that didn't grow up with HIV/AIDS as a death sentence, we have come to believe it as Africa's problem, not a problem that we all have a stake in. We believe that someone else will get it, but that it is no longer a problem in America, but "over there" or in "that neighborhood."

Out of that same study, only 6 percent of the people surveyed saw HIV/AIDS as a major health risk, compared to 44 percent in 1995, and 17 percent in 2006. This is not to say that millions of people in America, young and old, and in our community aren't invested in eradicating HIV/AIDS from the world, but it's not nearly enough people at the table. When a third of individuals surveyed in the Kaiser Family Foundation survey are still holding on to misconceptions about how HIV/AIDS can be transmitted (through drinking glasses, swimming pools, and touching a toilet seat), we know there is still a lot of work to be done.

The conversation around HIV/AIDS in America has become less taboo, but it is still worn with stigma and a lack of understanding. While the high HIV/AIDS infection rates abroad are important for us to tackle, let's not lose sight of the struggles faced by HIV/AIDS positive people at home. While we have one of our first presidents using public health messages to urge the public to get tested, as he did on National HIV/AIDS Testing Day, we need to continue those messages in our daily lives. World AIDS Day is important in increasing awareness to how HIV/AIDS affects nations all over the map; but we cannot stop these messages today. With HIV/AIDS infecting someone in America every nine and a half minutes, it is still a virus that doesn't discriminate regardless of how one identifies. Today reminds us there is a lot of work to be done, but tomorrow, let's reignite the fight against HIV/AIDS, not fight people with HIV/AIDS in America.