Anderson Cooper special on AIDS from an LTS perspective:

[jm1953]

This special has been a hot subject in the "Living With HIV" thread.  I posted a message there too.

I saw the special and personally was very disappointed.  Kudo's though to Anderson Cooper and CNN to recognize the 30th anniversary of HIV/AIDS. It may also have lifted some of the stigma surrounding AIDS across the globe.  But to the layman, I don't think it really said a whole lot except that HIV/AIDS is now a manageable chronic illness, one that a person can now live a normal life with.  It kind of gave the impression that if you contract AIDS now, you just take your meds and no big deal.

Sir Elton John I think did a good job talking about the stigma surrounding AIDS, and he certainly has done an amazing job contributing to the AIDS cause.  In fact an outstanding job.  But, with all due respect to the rest of the panel, I felt their comments were weak and disappointing.  The African American man who I can't remember his name, but has done tons for the AIDS movement, especially among the African American community, and has been positive for I think 30 years, basically gave the impression it is not really a big deal now having AIDS.  Get up, go to work, take my meds.  Granted he mentioned he was near death in 1996 until he got on a study I think, maybe the Crixivan trial, that saved his life.  But nothing said about actually living with AIDS.  The terrible health stuff we all as LTS  experience. The prohibitive cost of the meds to just stay alive. You know where I'm going with this.

And the Doctor, who is very famous in the AIDS world and highly respected, when asked about the advances going forward talked about a possible pill negative people can take every day and not worry about getting AIDS.  I think he said this is in trials.  And he talked about something else more preventative if I recall all this right.  I should say he allegedly talked about these things because I was kind of listening from the other room.  Maybe you who saw it and can feel in the cracks.  In may opinion this may have just fueled the fire about "now I don't even need to worry about getting AIDS".  He's so brilliant and could have touched on so many other subjects I think.

Mondo from "Project Runway" was brave telling the world about his HIV status on one of the episodes, but he really didn't contribute much about what it's like living with HIV/AIDS on this special.  I hope his contribution helps people less afraid to talk about their HIV status.

I would have liked to see the hour or maybe two full of interviews, stories about the people living with AIDS from newbies, to Long Term Survivors and some of the Hell we go through.  Their personal stories.
Instead, I think this special came across that AIDS is kind of cakewalk now with all the new advances and one can live a normal life with the new medications.  They never defined normal from a person suffering from AIDS perspective except for the one.

Anderson Cooper is a good journalist and I think tried to create more discussion about the horrors of having AIDS but just didn't get the reaction.

I just walked away disappointed after high expectations, especially as a person living with AIDS over 20 years, seeing almost all of my friends die in the 80's and 90's, going out on disability because I was so sick from the meds and depressed.  And trying to live day to day with lot's of health issues.  It is no cake walk.

Hope they will do a more thorough special next time.

Jeff