Stigmatising HIV and Hepatitis isn't an Ecumenical Issue...or even a Health Issue

The resignations of my friends Jennie Rigg and Sarah Brown resigned from the Liberal Democrats over the joyful acceptance of Philip Lee into the party it gave me pause for reflection.

It wasn't that long ago that another "health issue" caused a lot of hurt here in Northern Ireland when Iris Robinson mentioned that her friendly psychiatrist could cure Northern Ireland of Sodomy it seemed. Quite rightly the Liberal Democrats were up in arms about those comments.

However, when someone's views in the past that we should stop people coming to this country who have HIV or Hepatitis, some of those same people brush it under the carpet as a health issue. Then reject the anger and hurt that is felt by LGBT+ activists and campaigners. You see many of us who are LGBT+ have been told to our faces that we have a health issue. Usually as with Iris Robinson this is referring to our mental health. People have told us there is a cure, some of us even have tried the so called "cure" so know even more how much this hurts.

Refusing people entry to this country because they have HIV or Hepatitis is a mixture of Homophobia and Xenophobia. It is based on ignorance like in the 1980s that these are just gay diseases. It ignores the many millions from Sub Sahara Africa who have been infected by their partners or parents. It legitimises a certain amount of asylum refusal, in much the same way that many LBGT+ asylum seekers have been turned away by the Border Force for not being stereotypically "gay" enough to warrant asylum.

CIS, straight people telling LGBT+ people that they shouldn't be offended. That our lose would be unfortunate is stirring a pot that should not be stirred. We can feel this oppression because we still face it ourselves. We are still anxious about public signs of affection in areas we don't know well. We have faced the name calling, we have faced the accusing looks, the ignorance, the hatred.


Unlike from Father Ted this isn't so much an Ecumenical Issue. We are a party that believes nobody should be enslaved by conformity.

When you base you standards of conformity of misguided health guidelines; without realising the fact about undetectable viral loads or the health nightmare that some of the poorest in this world face, you are not allowing everyone to achieve the best that they can be. If you do are you truly Liberal.

My former Teacher hasn't learnt #SammyWilsonMP #WorldAIDSDay

Once upon a time Sammy Wilson and I shared a classroom. One of our Economics teachers started a new job and for the last weeks of our first A'Level year Sammy Wilson stepped in.

Just over 15 months later I was at Kingston Polytechnic (as it then was) studying for my degree in Economics. In those early months I met a young man who was the first person I knew who was living with HIV. This was that dark old days of the 80s and ignorance was still rife about how HIV was transmitted with rumours about shaking hands, or sharing cups or toilet seats.

A couple of years later that young man moved into the house that I was living in. I shared many a chat into the small hours of the morning, listening to his concerns about the stigma he was facing, the life that he would be missing out on and the opportunities he felt he would never be able to fully realise. Those were tough, heart wrenching conversations. With hugs, cups of tea and the rest showing that the stigma was only from those who were ignorant.

Sammy Wilson has said he refuses to support World AIDS Day because "HIV is a result of lifestyle choices". The friend that I learnt my first lessons about HIV and AIDS about would snort at Sammy Wilson for saying that. His lifestyle choice that lead to him contracting HIV wasn't really a choice, he took drugs. Without the drugs he would have died. He was a haemophiliac and he had to take those drugs, it wasn't a choice. Like half of all haemophiliacs at that time he actually acquired HIV not through a lifestyle choice but though a desire to live and not bleed to death.

Of course Sammy Wilson has shown his ignorance of LGBT+ people in the past. He really thinks that the young man who sat in his A'Level class that year was happy with the realisation of his sexual orientation. The fact is that he had contemplated taking his life before Sammy stood before him in a classroom. The reason being that he couldn't chose to ignore the feeling he was having and it didn't fit with his Northern Irish, Presbyterian upbringing. That young man couldn't chose to be other than gay or bisexual. His orientation was there despite his upbringing and culture he grew up in. It was unhappy, full of bullying and a lonely place to be. It was something that back then he didn't speak to others about but he bottled it in.

Of course that young man back then is me. The message then was don't die of ignorance. The message is still the same today, sadly it is the ignorance of some of our politicians here in Northern Ireland that is the greatest risk.

Please Sammy don't let others gay, straight, children or adults die because of your ignorance about HIV.

All I want for Christmas is....

 This is Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He is a man who it would seem has set himself up for a pretty busy advent season this year.

Why?

Well in his sermon on Sunday he said it was possible to cure the world of AIDS by Christmas. Here we were over 30 years after the outbreak of this disease and he apparently has the solution within 4 weeks. No wonder he is going to be busy.

He is going to have to produce his solution and distribute it to the 35 million people world wide living with HIV/AIDS world wide in a little over 25 days. Not to mention the 5,753 new cases who will be diagnosed every day during his quest.

But is he going to be handing out a vaccine and cure to those 35 million people of whom 3.2 million are aged less than 15? No.

His solution instead is to go out there and stone all the gay and bisexual men out there. Even my his own reckoning of 1.6% of the USA population being gay and 0.7% bi that is approximately 7,344,107 US citizens he would have to kill to eradicate the 2.3 million cases of HIV/AIDS in North America, Western and Central Europe. That is before he deals with the situation in Europe. And that is but the tip of the iceberg.

But in Sub-Saharan Africa with 24.7 millions cases and most of those countries cracking down on homosexuality hard finding 24.7 million gay and bisexual men is bound to be hard. Here of course the spread of HIV is largely through heterosexual intercourse, hence the large number of women infected and the large number who pass it on to their children as a result.

So merely getting rid of all the gay and bisexual men in the world would not be enough. He's also have to stone all the people who have had more than one sexual partner in their life just to be certain.

But the biggest task before he sets out to possibly kills probably over 50% of the world's population to be absolutely certain is one even taller order. However, it is one that I'm sure a Pastor whose church claims to be faithful the word would want to do. It is to obey the practical example of Jesus. When they brought an adulterous woman to Jesus wanting to stone her to death he responded to them "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

So I'll make a deal with Pastor Anderson. If he can find someone without sin to cast that first stone I will meet up with him. I'd like the local police to be present and a few television crews to witness his start of cleansing the world of AIDS. To see the effect that finding this righteous man stoning a gay man who is not living with HIV or AIDS will have on the 35 million who would still be living with HIV/AIDS.

World Aids Day 2011: Getting to Zero #WAD2011

Today is World AIDS Day and the theme for 2011 is Getting to Zero. What that means is:

• Getting to zero new HIV infections
• Getting to zero discrimination
• Getting to zero AIDS related deaths

The first one is up to YOU know your status and your partners status and play it safe until you do. HIV can be passed on by heterosexual as were a homosexual sex, it can also be passed on by intravenous drug users sharing neddles. So be careful folks. Treat each new sexual partner with safety first, you won't know if they are affected on first contact.

The zero discrimination about HIV and AIDS is harder to achieve when you get groups like Christians for a Moral American making comments like this about the recent hospitalisation of George Michael. Yes 30 years on we still have ignorant people who think that HIV and AIDS are gay diseases. I had a conversation in a chat room during the week about people not wearing a red ribbon. Some don't wear it because they feel it marks them out a either LGBT or having HIV themselves. Some of the people who thought that love it when a straight celebrity appears in the gay media (yes the naked issue of Gay Times is out) supporting the LGBT community by identifying with them, but they seem nervous about supporting those living with HIV so positively. Of course those that wear the ribbon are those living with HIV, their partners, family, friends and supporters. At least that is how it should be. 

HIV is affected whole communities in parts of Africa. This is where the greatest number of AIDS related deaths occurs. All because the people there cannot afford the medications that many of those in the West take for granted these days. Many people can live successful lives living with HIV with their meds, but the companies who have produced the live enhancing and supporting meds for HIV are in it to make money and the Africa epidemic is something they are not prepared to do.

Of course not every area of the world is prepared to met all three of the zeroes this year. But the focus should be on one that can be most effective to a region or nations situation. All three require education to the risks that are still there and the things that can be done to overcome the stigma, the risk and the ability for those living with HIV to remain strong.

If you have a ribbon wear it with pride today. If you haven't see if you can find one (if not for this year for next December).

Finally I wish I were down in London today to take part in the World AIDS Day Swish down Old Compton Street at 6pm. However, those folks at Gaydar radio put in a little practise earlier. Now radio isn't the best medium to share such an activity with everyone, so they YouTubed it here:

Yes Freddie We Still Love You

It's hard to believe that 20 years ago we heard the sad news that Freddie Mercury had passed away.

I know exactly what I was doing that evening. One of my former house mates called me for the second night in a row. The previous day he'd called me because the Freddie had announced that he was HIV positive and had AIDS and my friend from University had contracted HIV through a bad dose of Factor 8 to deal with his haemophilia. My friend had always been one to panic, it is the reason that why I at the age of 22 was already more well read on HIV and AIDS than a lot of people on the news or in Parliament who should have known better.

That night I had been constantly screaming at the radio as I listened to a radio phone in and then my phone went. My friend was panicked that people would think he was going to die tomorrow. I asked had he contracted AIDS yet, the answer he gave was "No!" so I said "You and me are just going to have to keep on educating people like that out of their ignorance."

I never thought that day that 20 years later there would still be so much stigma attached to HIV especially as the meds that are available now give people a much greater change of never getting AIDS and give a far better quality of life, if you ignore the regime of pills, than people thought was possible 20 years ago. Little did we know that 2,750 of those 4,500 + haemophiliac HIV cases would still be with us. At the time many of us who knew them were reassuring them that doctor were working on something to improve their chances of survival knowing that previous breakthroughs were having only limited success.

Freddie's tragic death did two things for generation. It brought many of us back to the music of Queen, even it appears brought one nine-year-old to their music for the first time. Indeed I loved the fact that earlier this month just up the road at the Odyssey in Belfast at the MTV Europe Music Awards that Roger Taylor and Brian May accepted the Icon award on behalf of Queen. I can only imagine what Freddie would have thought and said, probably "About time!".

The other thing it did was highlight the issues of HIV and AIDS, it made more people learn about the facts than before that time. That in turn made it easier for people living with HIV to find people who didn't shirk away from letting them use their toilet, or use the same mug as they had. Admittedly there are still far too many people, especially here in Ireland who seem pig ignorant when you read various comments threads. But from his legacy came the Mercury Phoenix Trust which is one of the charities working for those with HIV and AIDS especially in Africa where Freddie was born, but worldwide. There have been charity events in his name for HIV charities for 20 years now, including tonight at the Rossini Theatre in Civitanova Marche, Italy.

Not everyone has had the past 20 years in full as days of their lives. But Freddie, we still love you.

Thank you for the music and on behalf of those living with HIV who have benefited from you late coming out about your disease have benefited from your legacy in other ways. "Sometimes I get the feeling I was back in the old days - long ago" today is one of those days.

For absent friends.

World #AIDS Day - #ActAware: Confession Time

I have a confession to make.

I don't always practise safe sex. In fact bareback sex does feel so much better than using a condom....

...at the time.

However, to be frank it is one of the reasons that so many people, especially gay men, are still getting infected day by day.People often ask, how can people put themselves in risk of affection, often that is one of the major reasons, it feels good....at the time.

There is of course then the wait of three months to get outside the window period, the anxious walk to a clinic to get tested, and the wait for the blood results and then the wait for the next time, just to be sure. But at the time it feels good, but that doesn't make it right to do so and here is a personal realisation as to why.

See the thing is that even though I campaign to end the blood ban, I really want it to be lifted in a way that I personally will find it very hard to give blood, not because of my sexual orientation but because of my how I go about it. I have had sex with men who are living with HIV (three of them in total, that I am aware of, though only two told me at the time).

The one of those who didn't tell me, contacted me rather embarrassed 8 months after we last had sex. His first comment was "I have something to tell you". Before he revealed that he'd just been diagnosed with HIV and probably was living with it at the time we were together. Thankfully for me he had failed to answer my questioning in a positive way when he asked for us to forget about the condoms. He also changed his answers when he'd asked again some weeks later.

I'm big enough, ugly enough and informed enough to make my own decisions about who I sleep with, providing I'm aware of the facts. With the two who were honest there are two things that I cannot provide:

1. I cannot offer him anal sex without a condom being involved
2. I cannot be 100% sure that any sex we have is safe (there is no guarantee of that)

I'm aware of my current HIV (and other STIs) status, just two weeks ago my bloods came back negative, as did my swabs. But that is as much through luck as good personal responsibility.

Here's the thing, if I were to fall in love with someone living with HIV, I would want to love them emotional, intellectually, spiritually and sexually. Of course anyone in such a circumstance would also be facing the same two criteria above. I trust on point one they would love me enough to respect that is the case, I hope for point two that they realise I love them enough to want to be part of them, even with that one small chance of doubt every time.

There has of course been a lot of jumping up and down in the gay press about Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) benefits from the use of Truvada before infection. However, this is a costly way to counter the issue and

"For now, and for the foreseeable future, condoms remain the most effective, easily available and cheapest way of preventing HIV transmission. As this trial suggests, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis is going to be an addition to condom use rather than a replacement of it."

So therefore as you've seen today through my blogging the message this World AIDS Day the message of Act Aware really is one that I am taking on board. That's why I'm protecting myself and others from HIV infection.

It is why I have taken this day away from parking my blog to make these three posts going from the overall picture, through my local situation and friend, to this very personal post. Hopefully through something I have said today, someone, somewhere, maybe even you, will take a number of steps to Act Aware in your own life.

1. Get tested (and keep getting tested) it may seem like a trauma to do it, but the knowledge of your status at regular intervals is far better than finding out late on you have an issue.
2. Practise safer sex always use a condom in casual relationships
3. Never rely on self disclosure from someone else. As I mentioned above 1 in 4 people living with HIV cannot disclose to you that they are, because they themselves do not know. Respect your own body and health, you are only in control of that, not anyone else's.

If you do live in Northern Ireland and are concerned about HIV contact the confidential helpline number 0800 137 437.

Or make a visit to the Genito Urinary Medicine (GUM) clinics at the following locations:

The Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast 

The Causeway Hospital, Coleraine 

Altnagelvin Hospital, Londonderry 

Daisy Hill Hospital, Newry

Condoms are readily available through chemists, public toilets or even in health packs at most gay venues. So even if you pull on a night out there is no excuse to not be prepared.

World #AIDS Day - #ActAware: HIV in Northern Ireland

Yeah it will come as shock to some people in Northern Ireland, but yes there are people living with HIV here in Northern Ireland.

You can't tell who they are by looking at them.

You are not at risk from every day contact with them.

The HIV Support Centre in Belfast says that every week there are two people newly diagnosed with HIV. That is two more people who will be living with HIV in their bodies, two more sets of family and friends that will be living with someone they know very well having HIV.

Of course it is up to the individual in question as to whether s/he lets their family or friends know their status. There is still a stigma attached to HIV, which is almost as much of the ignorance from the 80s instead of what is known now about the disease. In fact it is possible to be in a full relationship with someone living with HIV and practice safer sex and to remain negative yourself*.

That stigma is something that is hard to overcome. It only will be broken down if more people living with HIV are courageous enough to let others know. Showing others that they can live a perfectly normal live.

My friend Michael is a trustee of The HIV Support Centre and he is adamant that the stigma of HIV is best lifted when people are aware that people living with HIV are all around them. Until recently this was even an issue with The HIV Support Centre itself, referring to itself merely as 'The Centre'; the centre of what, one might ask. I recently witnessed him helping lift that stigma one person at a time.

He was talking to a friend he had known for some time, the conversation got round to HIV and his work as a trustee. Standing there listening I had an inkling where that conversation was going, especially once the friend seemed shocked that there people living with HIV in Northern Ireland, the friend was not someone you'd expect to be ignorant of such facts. Michael, eventually asked the question, "Do you know anyone living with HIV?". The friend replied "No". A hand was proffered with the words, "Hello, I'm Michael, I'm living with HIV." It was a brave step even to a friend of some standing, and I'm glad to report he shook that hand and carried on asking more questions, over to the side I was fighting back the tear ducts**.

There is also the stigma of attending a GUM clinic. Some people think that everyone in there is carrying some STI if not HIV. But not every car that you see in a garage needs work doing, some are just being serviced and getting looked over ahead of an MOT, getting tested regularly is just like that. Far better to know what your status is, negative or otherwise at regular intervals that to find out too late that there is something wrong. Late diagnoses means that sometimes the medications may not be effective for the treatment of HIV.

Scarily 1 in 4 people living with HIV are as yet undiagnosed. Scarily of that set 39% are diagnosed so late that they need to start HIV treatment immediately, and 30% were diagnosed so late that there was a real risk of developing a potentially fatal illness. When there are apparently to 1 in 20 of the UK wide gay male population that are living with HIV that can lead to nightmares. Therefore the rule of thumb is treat every encounter the same, be safe and respect your own body. If someone refuses you because you want safer sex, don't give in to peer pressure.

The message this year is ACT AWARE.

Are you aware of your HIV status?

If you're not but are sleeping around whether with people of the same sex or the opposite, may I advise you to go and get tested now and regularly and be aware.

If you don't believe how important that can be I'll advise to wait until my next blog post.


* Of course there is no such thing as 100% safe sex, but if you love someone you decide for yourself what you want to do providing you are in full knowledge of the facts.

** Yeah I tend to well up quite a lot.

World #AIDS Day: #ActAware

I know that I parked this blog a couple of weeks ago, but there is something today that is too big, that is beyond politics that I felt compelled to draw your attention to. Today is World AIDS Day. Here are some of the UK statistics from their website.

More people than ever are living with HIV in the UK and each year new infections occur.

People living with HIV in the UK

• The number of people living with HIV in the UK has trebled in the last 10 years
• More than 90,000 people are living with HIV in the UK
• Over a quarter of people with HIV in the UK are undiagnosed
• About two thirds of people living with HIV are men and a third are women
• Over half of all people living with HIV are aged between 30 and 44, but there are significant numbers both of young people and older people now living with HIV
• One in 20 gay men in the UK is living with HIV

New HIV cases in 2008

• 7,298 new diagnoses
• The two groups most affected remain gay and bisexual men and black African heterosexuals.  Three-quarters of people diagnosed were among these two groups.
• 2,760 new diagnoses among men who have sex with men
• 2,790 new diagnoses among people from black and minority ethnic communities

This year they are running a campaign to be aware. Be aware of your HIV status. The harrowing fact that I highlighted above is that a quarter of people living with HIV are not aware that they are infected.

I have to admit there have been times that I have gone for my regular checks that I have been worried that I might have been at real risk of being infected. Indeed one of my recent tests I was anxious. I had experienced the primary HIV infection (or sero-conversion illness) symptoms, at about the right time scale when I could have been exposed. However, my tests did come back negative.

Knowing your status is important whether you are gay or straight especially if you are engaging in an active sex life with multiple partners, or if you are in an open relationship. Get into the habit of going regularly (every six months) to your local genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinic or with your local GP. The local GUM clinic for me now is up at the Royal Victoria Hospital, their staff there carried out my last test.

The message today is:

Be Aware
Be as Safe as you can be
Be Responsible for you own health

Footnote

The term living with HIV often only refers to those who actually have HIV. But a friend of mine recently said that those of use who know a family member, friend or partner who has HIV are also in a sense living with HIV. We deal with some of the effects it has on the person that we love. If we carry on living with their HIV we do not love them any less, we may show our love for them even more through the practical things we do for them and the support we give them to help them carry on as normal.

In that sense I am someone who is living with another friend's HIV and I want them to know that I am thinking of them as ever today.

Quote of the Day: Marianne Rademacher

"If the responsibility for prevention is put entirely upon women and HIV-positive people, we are not recognising the combined responsibility of two people."

These words were spoken at the end of the trail of German pop star Nadja Benaissa, who was not given up to ten years in jail for having unprotected sex while HIV positive. She had sex with three men after she became affected at the age of 17 eleven years ago.

The words of Ms Rademacher of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe remind us as well as the Germans that the responsibility for safer sex lies with both partners. It should not be the sole responsibility of one partner and the fact that a possible jail term hangs over you makes it less likely that you will be open about it rather than more so.

For example if I a HIV negative person fall for someone and fall in love/lust with them and want to have sex with them, it is my responsibility to find out there status. The easiest way to do so is to ask the individual concerned, it is an element of putting trust in each other. If they tell me they are HIV positive I have the option, it is my decision what I wish to do with that information. I can proceed to have safer sex with that individual taking the precautions that I am able to do, or be totally safe and not proceed any further, but at that point the option is mine.

The responsibility has been both of ours to be open and honest about where we are. Ms Benaissa had been poorly informed, someone had told her there was next to zero chance of her passing on the virus. In fact of the three men she had unprotected sex with once has since been diagnosed HIV+. The chance of passing on the virus is not zero therefore there is a responsibility if you are positive to tell. Of course like Ms Benaissa that leads to the other issues of being open enough to discuss it and face the rejection option I mentioned before. These very poignant words from a HIV positive guy tell the issue that they can face when love is all around them, the constant fear of loneliness, disclosing and rejection:

"it has ... to do with the not being able to get on with a relationship either without telling the guy about my status – or after telling him."

This feeling from those that are positive isn't helped by a great deal of ignorance still out there about how HIV can (or cannot) be contracted. Something I would have hoped had lifted since I first faced it directly with a Uni friend who have contracted HIV through the bad Factor 8 that was given to Haemophiliacs. Sadly instead of greater understanding there appears to be a new generation growing up ignorant or forgetting about the risks.

However, I think that criminalising people for knowingly passing it on leads to people not having the desire to find out, not go for STI checks. Not being aware of what other infections they may have and could pass on to others.

So yes the responsibility does lie with both partners to be responsible. But it also does rest with everyone who is sexually active with more than one partner to know their own condition. As I mentioned in my speech in favour of lifting the Blood Ban. There are gay men who are more aware of the sexual health status than the vast majority of the heterosexual world. Maybe it is one thing that the LGBT community is more open about than the straight world. We are more aware of the risks, but as a result are more aware of the responsibilities that go with that risk.

Of course there is still more openness that is needed in all sections of our world when it comes to sexual health. The surprising number of over 50s who are getting infected, the large numbers of under 25s having unprotected sex, not just leading to unwanted pregnancy but to the spread of infections.

So next time you are about to embark on sex with a new partner heed the word of Ms Rademacher above. So be responsible play it safe.

Rage Against Stephen Green

I've just come back from Carols by Candlelight to hear two pieces of News, the first is that Rage Against the Machine have beaten X-Factor winner Joe McEllderry to Christmas number one. Earlier in the week Joe's mentor Cheryl Cole had said that the campaign wasn't fair to Joe, nothing personal against Joe but I think as he himself said tonight:

"It's more against the show than me and I think if any other person had have won, the same thing would have happened, because the petition was going on before the winner had been announced."

But some things are more important than the battle for the top of the charts at Christmas time and the other story that has got my attention really has my hackles up.

Stephen Green (who sometimes people mistype in blogposts instead of me) of Christian Voice has said the following:

"Gay people who have sex knowing they are HIV positive should be given the death penalty because they have 'committed murder';

"Capital punishment is acceptable because it is ordained by God in the Bible;

"Britain’s laws 'promote perversion' because they do not make homosexuality a criminal offence."

This is of course in reaction to the Ugandan Government's decision to give life sentences to anyone who has committed homosexual acts, and the death penalty. It shows the true colours of Christian Voice within this country they are not even speaking for the majority of Christians in this country. In this the season of goodwill to 'all' men Stephen Green is showing a total lack of goodwill not to mention ignorance of the issue of which he speaks.

For a start his is backing a campaign in Uganda that he believes will wipe out HIV/AIDS in the country. The actual rate of HIV in Uganda is currently 5.4% amongst adults, but is higher among women (7.5%) than men (5.0%). This is actually down on the peak so the claims that western gays are proselytising their life style and increasing the cases of HIV fly in the face of the facts.

Of course Green's comments only relate to gay people passing on knowingly HIV infection but like in most sub-Saharan countries the greater number of HIV sufferers is actually amongst the heterosexual community. Why doesn't he condone the death penalty for all HIV sufferers irrespective of sexuality? The answer is simple he has an anti-gay agenda and HIV is just in his eyes a handy excuse to exterminate the gay community. Therefore Hitler-like he wants to round up all homosexuals and place us in prison. He says as much in that he wants the UK to re-criminalise homosexuality. He'd then want to put to death those that knowingly pass on HIV; but only if they are gay.

He of course ignores the fact that some couples live with one member being HIV positive and follow safer sex practises to ensure that the other does not capture the disease. Therefore the act of sex is not as itself an act of 'murder' as he would have you believe, indeed with current advances in medical science it need not be the imminent death sentence it once was in the 80s.

So Stephen is advocating mass concentration camps and genocide. Christian Voice would be guilty of far greater crimes that those they seek to prosecute.

Chris Bryant MP for Rhondda as said of Green:

"Ignorance is one thing but deliberate ignorance is quite another. Aids is caused by a virus not by anybody’s sexuality and if people keep on propagating these myths then many more African people will die of Aids.

"It is comments like this that mean some people will grow up in Wales worrying about their sexuality and worrying that if they tell other people they will be verbally and physically assaulted."

Stephen Green flies inf the face of what it means to be a Christian to love one another as Christ loves the Church. He is upholding Old Testament law to the exclusion of New Testament forgiveness.

World AIDS Day 2009

Today is World AIDS day.

The number of people in the UK living with HIV has actually trebled in the last 10 years. However, despite more people living with it less people know that someone they know has it, this is because the treatments now available allow people to look healthier with HIV than they did in the 1980s.

Last year of the 7,298 new diagnoses in the UK, 2,760 new diagnoses where amongst men who have sex with men, and 2,790 of the rest were from black or ethnic minorities.

Worldwide the figures are:

• 33.4 million people living with HIV worldwide
• 31.3 million adults
• 15.7 million women
• 2.1 million children under 15

Today the Guardian features the lives of teenagers living with HIV in Brazil, the Times follows model Erin O'Connor on a trip to Ghana to visit projects by RED, the Telegraph looks at China, where it emerged in 2001 that 30,000 to 50,000 people in Henan were infected by botched blood transfusions.

Read the stories or find out more from the web today. But be aware the number of cases both here in the UK and worldwide is still growing, so be careful.

American Health Failure for Rape Victims

Came across this from the Huffington post shared by one of my American friends on Facebook.

Apparently a rape victim who was drugged before being sexually assaulted followed sound medical advise and took a months worth of Anti-AIDS medication. You would have thought in the word of the memorable line from Trainspotting to 'Choose Life' would have been the salient choice.

Not so her health insurance company. They refused to sell her a policy as the HIV medication asked too many health questions, this despite the case being explained to them. So now you know it people, do not get raped in the USA, or if you do don't take preventative measures for STDs, if you do your insurance company will leave you without health cover.

While a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans the trade organisation said that insurers do not discriminate against victims of sexual assault and ordinarily would not even know if a patient had been raped. The exclusion of some of the people who have taken this medication is from those who have been victims of a sexual crime and therefore is discriminating against them.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/insurance-companies-rape-_n_328708.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/insurance-companies-rape-_n_328708.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/insurance-companies-rape-_n_328708.html

Petrificus Totalus Lib Demmery: Not so Fast - Possibly

A lot of my Lib Dem friends got rather excited by the news leaked last week that Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe admitted to Attitude magazine's Youth edition that he was most likely going to vote Lib Dem at the next election.

For those of you who were holed up under the stairs at Privet Drive here is what he said:

"I actually rather like Nick Clegg. But ya know, cat's chance in hell. At the next election I will almost certainly vote Lib Dem. If all the people who liked them voted for them you could change politics overnight and we could have a proper three party system."

Some rather interesting comment, especially when you realise that he also said 'David Cameron is barely distinguishable from Tony Blair' and in response to would he like to see Cameron as Prime Minister ' No! No, no, no, no. no!'. As for Gordon he quotes Paul Merton is saying "it's a tragedy that this man has waited all his life to do this job - and now he finds out he can't do it".

As you can gather there actually is a lot of depth of thought in the young star such referencing Daniel Defoe, Martin Niemöller and the following comments on gay education being included in schools.

"There's all this stuff at the moment, which is hateful, about people being up in arms about the idea of gay sex education is schools. Hello!?! Actually for the one or two gay kids in the class, it's fucking vital! It really makes me angry. You're not going to turn the straight kids gay by giving them a sex ed class about how to have gay sex safely! You know. Really. People can catch HIV even after their first time and that's what it's all about; that can be avoided."

And this about the importance of getting out and voting:

"It's so important that young people learn about politics and vote even if it is a protest vote to make a point. Not voting is not a protest."

Of course while that Lib Dem vote comment may have been headline grabbing there is more behind the story and it isn't all good news. The interview runs to 9 columns over 5 pages so there a fair amount of the inner working of Radcliffe's thoughts that are exposed and he seems a rounded, intelligent, thoughtful young man. But following on from giving us his vote at the General Election he says:

"My prediction for the next ten years. The Tories will get in at the next election and will be in for a while. They have to go to the centre to get in, that's how they have to play it, but once they're in they will reveal themselves to be much more right wing that they actually make out - and the left will react to that and we will actually have a proper left wing again"

Attitude: And would you support a proper left wing?

"Yes, yes. I would actually."

Admittedly young Radcliffe happily admits he was too young to experience the euphoria of New Labour in 1997. So he doesn't know a proper left wing being in opposition of in power like some of those slightly older that him (OK double his age) can. So maybe, just maybe where he to experience that he really would realise that the Lib Dem way really is the right way.

Yes my more libertarian brethren may argue with me rotten of fiscal and social policies but to the core we are Liberals where it matters most, somewhere that reading Daniel's word in Attitude I believe he belongs too. But you know what having both sides of the debate in making spending policy I think we get it more often right than either of the extremes.

Pope's Prophylactic Fallibility

Well His Infallibleness Benny XVI's comments in Africa have come under much scrutiny, not least in the Vatican's own official website. While His Condomless was heard to say about AIDS in Africa:

"It is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms which even aggravates the problems."

The Vatican's website changed the word for the phrase "merely risks aggravating".

There is another subtle change and dispute in the Italian text of an interview given on the flight to Angola the colloquial term from condoms is preservati this was replaced by profilattici (which covers a wider range of measures) before being changed back. Clearly in light of the comments the Holy See felt that the use of a word from the stem to preserve life wasn't in keeping with the overall effect of the message that was clearly being portrayed.

It is all very well the church trying to teach abstinence and fidelity of those who take Holy Orders were above reproach. But the failure of Priests in sexual celibacy, even to the abuse of children shows how difficult even the Church of Rome finds it difficult to practise what it preaches.

Surely now is the time for the Pope as head of the Roman Catholic world to acknowledge the help that wearing a condom can do to the quality and hope of life in areas so heavily afflicted by AIDS. If every sperm is so precious that it should be used by procreation then sadly the teenage male population would have every available womb in the world starting to create a new life before breakfast.

Ben and Johnny 2

In his first full day in Africa as Pope, Benedict XVI continues in his stance against condoms (the Johnnies of the piece) as a way to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic ravaging the continent. He said he'd come with a 'message of hope' but where is the hope for the 22 million across Africa who are already affected, or their wives and families.

The Catholic Church is adamant that education of abstinence and family life is the way to go. He claimed that chastity outside marriage and fidelity within it had proved to be "the only sure way of preventing the spread of HIV and Aids". The problem is that in Africa a lot of the spread of the disease has been within marriage where one of the partners (normally the male) has not held their marriage vows. There have been peaks at times of the increase of the infection amongst pregnant women. And some countries have a greater than 15% presence of the infection amongst it's adult population. It is not so much a case of need to save oneself as being uncertain even if you did that you'd be safe.

The fact that as the church would like to point out the spread in many countries has stabilised at around 20% is not because of a new found fidelity but because the rate of new infections and deaths is in a morbid state of equilibrium. The problem is also that 2 million of those infected in Africa have been infected since birth or from breast feeding from their infected mother. There is a generation that will be growing up with the disease.

Of course the Church will want to spread a moral message but is not giving people the chance to life a first and foremost an abomination, especially as there is a easy chance to help. Yeah sure supplying condoms isn't the whole answer as there is education needed that using one is a selfless act, but one that could help defend each participants health. But to outright deny them because to quote Python 'every sperm is precious' yet doing all they can to help those already with life is hypocrisy of the highest magnitude and one that the Church has yet to be brought to account over.

Ben and Johnny 1

Peter Brookes Cartoon in today's Times points out a serious story of the Roman Catholic Church's attitude to Africa and the frisson over how to handle the AIDS epidemic that is sweeping that continent. I hope to write more about that later in the meantime enjoy Mr Brookes' work.

In Which I Suggest Pope Benedict Has a Point

The headline story in the Daily Fail was Homosexuality is as great a threat as rainforest destruction, says Pope wow you've seen the horror all day. Iain Dale (dare I speak his name two evenings in a row) suggested that the Pope should just join the BNP and be done with it. Paul Walter took more considered look at just what he said in depth rather than trying to simply fill a headline.

However, I was talking (or rather typing this over this morning) and came to the conclusion that you know maybe old Papa Ben has a point. Not only that he has a solution. Now I beat all the hundreds of people who visited this humble blog in the last 24 hours didn't expect to hear me coming to that concolusion.

So lets look at it the Pope appears to have identified two major issues affecting mankind:

1. First is the contrariness to nature (defined by Benny boy as man and woman) of the LBGT community in various ways.
2. The deforestation of our planet.

As a liberal leaning environmentalist you would expect me concur with the second but am a little dubious of the first. But this Ulster born protestant says hang on a second this could just make sense. The Church of Rome and its Bishop have a point and a plan to deal with both.

First off remember the churches aversion to wrapping of mens' intimate parts for the purposes of not multiplying too much. Something that many apologists for the non-Catholic population of world say would help solve a lot of the overcrowding on this planet of finite resources. Well that is a conning masterstroke to the Uberplan of the Pope.

First he aims to impose a world-wide ban on their sale, use, or possession on forfeiture one's life and corporeal soul. Then reinstates the Spanish inquisition to ensure that this Papal edict is carried out, and not care too much if they get carried away with themselves again.

End result 8% based of current estimate of the promiscuous, filthy gayer part of the male population would be wipe out 48million people a moderately sized country. However, nothing compared to wiping out the entire continent of Africa. Then of course you'd hear the Church calling HIV AIDS God's gift rather his judgement as they'd have solved both problems in one fell swoop.

The above is of course entirely satirical and my tongue is firmly wedged in my cheek.

Chipped and HIV+

The Papua province of Indonesia has controversially proposed a law to implant microchips into citizens living with HIV. Papua has one of the worse infection rates outside Africa but the measures which also include mandatory testing, tattooing of carriers and special ID cards for those that test positive sound awfully like some of the anti-Semitic measures taken by the Third Reich.

The microchip technology is the modern version of travel permits being able to track the whereabouts of the victims of this disease. However, with much of the Papuan population cut of from towns, electricity or phone coverage even the effectiveness of such measures proposed by the Indonesian government would seem ludicrous. The aim of the chips is to seek out those who are "sexually aggressive", the meaning of which is defined by John Manangsang a lawmaker as "actively seeking sexual intercourse."

The country's AIDS Commission has said the provision is not just unworkable in Papua but a violation of human rights. "How can someone know if a person is having sex or jumping and dancing?" said the commission's secretary Nafsiah Mboi. Instead of branding and tracking HIV+ citizens help and medical care should be high on the agenda.

World Aids Day: Still There is Ignorance

To mark the 20th World AIDS Day much of the media has been running stories over the weekend and today. However, in Friday's times next to the tales of four people living with HIV/AIDS there was also a startling reminder that there is a lot of ignorance still out there.

Those of us who lived through the 1980's early campaign Don't Die of Ignorance will definitely be shocked at the amount of ignorance that the article threw up.

Amongst some of the startling levels of ignorance were:

"One person in three living with HIV in the UK doesn't know that he or she
is infected, putting their health and that of their sexual partners at risk.
Undiagnosed HIV is responsible for about half of all new infections.

"For many people the diagnosis is too late for them to start treatment. The
virus is more likely to be diagnosed late in heterosexual men (42 per cent) and
women (36 per cent) than in gay or bisexual men (19 per cent). A late diagnosis
is 13 times more likely to lead to death within a year.

"In a recent survey, only 79 per cent of respondents knew that HIV can be
transmitted through unprotected sex between a man and a woman, compared with 91 per cent in 2000."

Sadly after 20 years it is still ignorance that leads to more unnecessary deaths in the UK, but sadly the level of ignorance appears to be growing again.

HIV Discrimination Shame in Schools

I was led to this shocking report in Sunday's Observer. It led me to wonder are we still living in the dark ages of the 80s over HIV and more to the point why?

The first shocking thing is that schools in Hertfordshire and Lancashire are able to turn away children looking for new schools after it was revealed that they were HIV+. Not only is this shocking but since 2005 under the Disability Discrimination Act it has been illegal to discriminate against anyone because of their HIV status. Also if this is county wide just where are these parents expected to school their children.

In a ideal world there is a limited need to know of a child's medical status and his should only need been known to staff in direct contact with the child and the school nurse. This should not be dissipated further without the parent's consent however reading the incidents that have happened it would sadly be clear why parents would not wish the school to know in the first place.

It is confidential information and has no need to be disclosed to school dinner ladies or other pupils. The fact that one child was told of their previously unknown to them status by a teacher, which led to bullying shows lack of professionalism by the member of staff involved. When there is a chance of an adult having a STI they undergo a private counselling session before taking the test, that session is dealt with by a trained professional in that field. How much more care needs to be taken with a child? Which may well have been why the parents had yet to address the issue with the child. The end result in that child's case bullying and forced to leave the school would indicate one of two things. The child may have been told in the presence of other children and neither the staff, nor pupils once that first error was made were given appropriate guidance on how to deal with the outcome.

What is also shocking is the tenor of the article that teachers themselves are ignorant, indeed fearful through that ignorance, of how HIV is transmitted. In the 1980s we started in ignorance but many of us quickly learnt our facts once these became known from the shrouds of urban myth. In my case the education came swiftly as the result of sharing a house with a Haemophiliac who contracted HIV through bad factor 8. HIV cannot be passed on by spitting, biting, small cuts or grazes, sharing utensils or toilet seats. The risk assessment of any school would reveal that the changes of any possible spread of HIV from an affected pupil or member of staff is so minimal to be be negligible under normal circumstances and normal first aid guidelines would normally be sufficient under those extreme conditions anyway.

That our educators are ignorant of this lead one to wonder just what else our educators are ignorant of in their training, homophobia, race etc are areas that these people need to be taught and trained about to be able to deal with possibilities in the classroom. Are they? And is that training sufficient?

For the sake of the 1500 children in the UK living with HIV, 1000 of whom are under 15 and the 100 new diagnoses in this age group each year we need to provide them with an educational set up that allows them to be who they are without fear of some disclosure that may result in bullying or ignorant fear from others.