HIV/AIDS, the Stigmatizing Virus

Not much has changed with the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS. It remains a stigmatizing virus, and bias centers on the gay population and Black communities. Those of us in healthcare tell everyone that it is a non-discriminatory virus that doesn't care who you are or where you are from, and yet, we continue to harbor bias deeply rooted in shame.

In my earlier years, I worked in home health and hospice, where we took care of people dying from AIDS who came from all walks of life. I had one patient, a young Black female barely twenty years of age whose friends freaked out when she died suddenly. They were ill-prepared, so were we given the last-minute sign-up to hospice care. The EMS arrived because her father initiated 911, hoping he could save his dying daughter. I watched her father sadly look on when the paramedics worked fast to start an IV. Needles were thrown everywhere. They flung them about as if none of us in the room noticed.

She had died. They did not even attempt resuscitation. The ambulance drove off, the father followed, and I knew they would pronounce her dead once she got to the hospital. I remained behind to pick up all the needles. I wondered if they would have behaved this way at some of my other patients' homes.

I stood outside, assuring her friends that they could not contract AIDS just because they shared drinking from a bottle in prior weeks. They were all young, scared, and sad.

This was during the height of the AIDS crisis. We often would get that last-minute call to go in and do crisis intervention. On one such call one evening, two of us went to a home with a family who had arrived from out of state. The partner was ignored and looked lost. I stayed with the patient and the partner while the other nurse went and spoke with the dying patient's family. Where had they been all this time? It was an era when this virus was so feared and carried a stigma that people avoided it like the plague.

Nothing much has changed in what people continue to believe. I want to let the world know it is time to admit that we must stop stigmatizing people with HIV. We must address our biases and associations with White and Black folks before we stop stigmatizing this population. The reality is that straight and not just gay people are diagnosed with HIV and that White and not just POC are diagnosed with HIV, including doctors, nurses, accountants, attorneys, and not just the marginalized populations. It isn't a disease of poverty-stricken populations or reserved for people without homes or sex workers. Still, while there are risk factors, the reality remains that people are reluctant to be forthcoming for fear that they will endure rejection and that everyone will know that they are walking around with HIV.

Posters usually have pictures with people of color, perpetuating misinformation that it is a person of color disease. There are at-risk populations, but when you look around your place of work or school or drive along the highway, are you able to tell who is at risk? Who comes to mind when you hear this language used in the context of HIV/AIDS?

HIV/AIDS continues to spread in populations who continue to hide it. We don't hide COVID-19 or Shingles. We are honest about it unless we choose otherwise, but usually, it isn't because of the stigma that this information is withheld.

We prevent people from seeking the care that they deserve to receive. People who serve on committees or volunteer to help at AIDS organizations know that others assume they must have HIV. Yet, when people serve on committees or volunteer to help ALS organizations, they are not assumed to have ALS but may be thought to have a relative with ALS. These two scenarios are vastly different. One harbors stigma, while the other generates empathy.

I hope we can soon change how we see people diagnosed with this virus.