Earlier this month, Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance baselessly blamed Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, for a “skyrocketing” increase in HIV.
His claim is categorically false.
Public health officials also confirm there is no evidence that HIV cases are skyrocketing in Springfield.
This was followed by racist and false claims about Haitian immigrants allegedly “eating dogs and cats.”
The Executive Committee of Equality Springfield responded to Vance’s lies about HIV: “Equality Springfield unequivocally denounces the dangerous and baseless claims that our Haitian population has led to ‘skyrocketing’ cases of HIV in Springfield. We are steadfast in our commitment to end the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS and call on all media outlets to promote facts and debunk falsehoods.”
View this post on Instagram
Today, treating HIV can suppress the virus to the point where it is no longer detected, allowing people living with HIV to live long and healthy lives. When HIV is undetected, it is not sexually transmittable. This is the key message of the U=U campaign (undetectable = untransmittable).
There’s also been a massive evolution in HIV prevention, not just treatment.
PrEP, a medication that can prevent HIV infection in people who feel they are at high risk of getting it HIV do not yet have HIV, can now reduces the risk of getting HIV from sex by 99%.
Even with these major advancements in HIV prevention and treatment, transmission does continue, particularly among LGBTQ communities of color. The most recent statistics from the CDC show gay and bi men accounted for 70% of new infections in the U.S. in 2021, with the highest number among Black and Latine gay and bisexual men. 25% of new HIV infections were among Black gay and bi men, 22% among Latino gay and bi men, and 44% among gay and bi men under the age of 35. Trans people were 2.5% of new HIV diagnoses in the U.S.
Most of those new HIV diagnoses were among Black transgender women.
The stigma around HIV and stigma faced by people living with HIV remains an urgent barrier to prevention and treatment.
“Notwithstanding the progress made, AIDS claimed one life every minute around the globe in 2022,” according to the recently published report from the United Nations Secretary-General. The same report noted: Worldwide, key populations including gay men and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, and their partners continue to be held back by stigma and discrimination and HIV criminalization laws.
Nearly 30 states today, including Ohio, have HIV criminalization laws on the books, which disproportionately punish Black Americans. These laws criminalize the transmission of, or perceived exposure to, HIV. The laws create a strong disincentive for being tested for HIV, and thus starting treatment if needed.
The Center for HIV Law & Policy also notes that in Ohio, people convicted under the state’s HIV criminalization law are required to register as sex offenders.PLHIV even face enhanced penalties for spitting or exposing others to saliva.
Rather than seek to help Ohio residents by sharing the facts about HIV today, Senator Vance is taking a page from the dangerous 1980s political playbook and using HIV as a scare tactic to divide.
“Silence = Death” was one of our community’s loudest rallying cries in the 1980s to force action from the CDC and FDA on the HIV epidemic. Because of the tireless and successful work of so many advocates, change came and continues with federal government programs like Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S., along with a number of national and local HIV organizations.
However, more than 40 years after the HIV epidemic began, misinformation and silence are still a problem.
Silence = Stigma.
The People Living with HIV Stigma Index 2.0 shows that, globally, nearly 25 percent of people living with HIV (PLHIV) reported one or more experiences of stigma and discrimination when seeking non-HIV-related health care in the last 12 months.
While, GLAAD’s 5th annual State of HIV Stigma report found a statistically significant decline in the U.S. general public’s belief that HIV stigma exists in the U.S., with 85% of Americans saying they believe HIV stigma exists, down from 89% in 2020.
Despite breakthroughs in HIV awareness, innovation and care, stigma is not a thing of the past.
Indeed, simply because the general public sees less HIV stigma, that does not mean stigma does not exist.
In fact, while the general public in America report a statistically significant decline in the belief that stigma around HIV exists, and 90% of the general public report knowing at least a little about HIV, the general public is woefully lacking in the facts about HIV today.
GLAAD’s State of HIV Stigma also found a statistically significant decline in the belief that everyone should get tested for HIV (down to 67% from 77% in 2020), and only 85% of the general public know that people living with HIV can live long, healthy lives (a statistically significant decline, down from 90% in 2020).
This lack of current knowledge on HIV is set to grow with the report finding only 37% of Gen Z feel knowledgeable about HIV.
One of the biggest tools we have against HIV stigma is portraying accurate and realistic stories about HIV in the content we consume.
GLAAD research suggests that seeing stories of people living with HIV increases comfortability with people living with HIV in various scenarios in life by up to +15%.
This is why visibility and representation is so critical in media, because people are less likely to judge, damn and hate that which they are more familiar with or have knowledge of. But the picture being painted in Hollywood right now when it comes to portraying people living with HIV in a way that drives acceptance is quite bleak.
Entertainment media is responsible for a great disservice to our community and the general public by keeping HIV invisible. This year, there are zero characters living with HIV on scripted television and zero characters living with HIV in films from mainstream distributors.
Further, an analysis of 181 local newspapers and TV stations in the U.S. South over an 18 month period found only 79 stories that addressed HIV, and only 27 included substantive facts about prevention, treatment, and information like U=U. This is in a region that has the highest rates of new infections, deaths, and includes an estimated half a million people living with HIV.
It’s not just TV or politicians — mainstream publishers are contributing to stigma by pushing HIV lies too. Just last year Simon & Schuster distributed a book by a well-documented AIDS denier, which was met by protests from GLAAD, ACT UP, and other HIV and LGBTQ organizations.
Media, whether news or entertainment, should reflect facts and the real world, and today gay and bi men are the population group in the U.S. most impacted by HIV.
A vast number of LGBTQ men, trans people, and other queer people today are on PrEP. If media aim to reflect queer life today – HIV prevention and treatment must be included. While the end of Showtime’s limited series Fellow Travelers means there are no scripted characters living with HIV today, the original U.S. version of Queer as Folk, Logo’s Noah’s Arc, ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, and films like Three Months all depict queer people living with HIV in current times.
Where silence = stigma, visibility = education.
When J.D. Vance is the only voice in mainstream media mentioning HIV, stigma will continue to grow.
It’s up to all of us to fight against HIV criminalization laws, spread the word about U=U, and end the media silence by being visible.