Charlottesville, Va.
A nine-member panel discussion on HIV/AIDS by community activists and health care providers last week ended the three-day Symposium on Race and Society hosted by the University of Virginia Health System designed to call attention to the issue of health disparities in the United States.
A crowd of about 150 community members, and UVA faculty and students filled Jordan Hall Conference Center Auditorium to hear the professionals field questions such as what barriers prevent people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS from taking their medication. What inhibited people with a diagnosis from disclosing their disease to others? And how to fight the secrecy that surrounds the disease and helps it spread throughout the community?
“It never occurred to me not to admit that I tested HIV positive,” said Joan Walker, a community health advocate. “It was a diagnosis, not a label. I am not HIV positive, I tested HIV positive.”
Her response drew applause from the crowd as she expressed an attitude fairly uncommon among those with the diagnosis. Dr. Nan Brown, who leads a prison HIV/AIDS support group, told of clients who refused to get in line to collect their medication for fear that their fellow inmates would learn of their diagnosis.
“Some would talk to me privately but only on the condition that I not say anything to the others,” Brown told the audience. “They were so afraid of the stigma associated with the disease.”
Each panel member had similar tales of people who would do anything, even die, before letting people know about their disease. Walker said that when she started talking about her diagnosis, some people admitted to being afraid of her. But as she explained the condition, that fear went away. One friend asked her to speak about HIV/AIDS at his church.
