Michael Ferrigno
Professor Oppenheimer
Seminar 3: Urban Epidemics
8 October 2012
Media Perspectives of HIV, Testing, and Antiretroviral Treatment
The media plays a major role in bringing information to the masses. This makes the media powerful, since they can bring this information from various perspectives and persuade the masses on how to think and feel about a subject, consciously or subconsciously. In the 1980s, before the Internet and computers were a main source of information, written media was a preferred source of general information about what was going on in the world. Accordingly, the epidemic of HIV/AIDs cases began to catch light in the early 1980s. In a conservative society, such as the United States’ at the time, sex was not discussed and sexual promiscuity, as well as homosexuality, was frowned upon and not socially accepted. The media presented the disease as an immoral disease that was thought to come from sexual promiscuity, such as gay sex and multiple sex partners. This led to societies stigma of the disease as well as prejudice against those who had the disease.
Newspapers and journals, such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Press, are some examples of papers that first brought HIV/AIDs to the attention of society. HIV/AIDs is still a major disease, and more current reports may offer a different perspective of the disease, one that does not involve the stigma of the disease, but instead focuses on the human rights aspects of the disease, ethical and moral aspects, as well as the attempts and current position the medical field is in, in finding a cure for the disease. If the perspective of the disease has changed over time in the media, this can be reflected by a change of perspective by society. Comparing and analyzing articles in these papers, from the 1980s, 1990s, and most recently 2000s, we will be able to see the shift in understanding of the disease, from the primal confusion and stigma of the complicated disease, to the more present understanding, treatment, and hope for a cure. This shift will show the growing understanding of the disease in society, which correlates to working together as a society to reach effective solutions for treatment, care, and sexual rights of people living with HIV/AIDs.
Little was known about AIDs when it first exploded and came to light in the 1980s. A New York Times article from 1988 called “Study Backs Theory That AIDS Festered in Africa” discusses the origin of the disease. The article begins stating “urbanization and war have played major roles in the continent’s (Africa’s) recent AIDS explosion” (NY Times). The study is based on the fact that in a remote village, the instances of AIDs infection has remained the same over a decade, while throughout the continent AIDs is spreading. The article later states reasons as to why urbanization and war is to blame, saying “the study suggests that recent social upheavals and migration helped spread AIDS by contributing to a breakdown of traditional tribal values and increased sexual promiscuity, especially in cities” (NY Times). According to the article, “the AIDS virus spreads through sexual intercourse and exchanges of blood, as on contaminated hypodermic needles and from mothers to newborns” (NY Times). This article does a masterful job at relaying the facts about the disease, the patterns it is spreading in, and the reasons behind why it is spreading, however it is also a heavily biased article.
The title of the article describes the spreading of the disease as “festering.” Usually when one thinks of festering they think about a cut that has become infected, or food that has spoiled and is giving off smelly odors. The title uses fester to describe the transmission of the AIDs disease across African cities, and is essentially saying that the increased immoral behaviors, such as “sexual promiscuity,” in these densely populated cities are to blame. The author is essentially saying that the disease is not festering, but the people are, due to the “social upheavals” and “breakdown of traditional tribal values” (NY Times). This is a primitive form of disease theory, where an immoral lifestyle is blamed as the cause of disease. However, with AIDs this theory holds some truth. For example someone who leads this immoral lifestyle, whether by being sexually promiscuous or an injection drug user, will be at more risk and have a higher probability of being exposed to the disease. This is where the stigma of AIDs lies, and can be clearly seen through the article’s use of the word “festering” and discussion of the social behaviors that can lead to transmission and spreading of the disease.
Another article, “HTLV-1 Virus Found in the Blood of Prostitutes” by Michael Waldholz, discusses the prevalence of the HTLV-1 virus in prostitutes and injection drug users. Waldholz states “researchers have found evidence of a cancer-causing virus closely related to the AIDS virus in the blood of more inner-city prostitutes than they had expected” (Waldholz). This disease is only related to AIDs because of the fact that it belongs to the category of retroviruses. By saying the two diseases are related however, the author is making a correlation between prostitutes and AIDs. This shows that at the time a socially unacceptable career, prostitution, was being linked to these deadly and feared diseases. The link to immoral behavior is strengthened when Waldholz continues to say, “A previous study had shown that the two viruses were unexpectedly prevalent among intravenous drug abusers in New Orleans” (Waldholz). The connection between drug users and prostitutes is shown through the fact that “the new study suggests that the virus is being transmitted to the prostitutes via sex with drug users” (Waldholz).
As we can see from the two articles discussed so far, by 1990, when the Waldholz article was published, the stigma of AIDs was established. Its link to the most derogatory social behaviors was misunderstood, and led others to believe that the disease itself was one that was an immoral disease. Essentially this means that a person infected with the disease was stigmatized as an immoral person, which is why he or she contracted the disease to begin with. This isn’t true however, due to the fact that transmission could occur beyond immoral acts. For example, “1,200 British hemophiliacs who have been infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, from contaminated blood” (Lohr). This statement shows that blood transfusions could spread the disease through transfusing blood that was contaminated with the virus. This was pivotal because it was one of the first instances where the disease was spread via a pathway that wasn’t from immoral behaviors, but showed that this disease was capable to be transmitted to anyone.
The fact that the disease could be spread through medical procedures caused the disease to be more feared. Instead of bringing light to the fact that this wasn’t an immoral disease, the author is increasing public fear. Lohr adds to this fear by explaining that “the British Health Department issued its statement of government policy saying that AIDS-infected doctors can continue working in most cases and that their patients do not have to be told” and that “In the United States, the Federal Government similarly recommends that health care workers who are infected with the AIDS virus should be allowed to continue working except in special circumstances” (Lohr). Doctors can be infected with the disease, but doctors are not viewed as immoral citizens. Doctors are viewed in society as one of the highest praised professions, helping cure others of their ailments, and being very highly educated. A dilemma is presented where this immoral disease has reached to the upper classes of society. Once again instead of focusing on what this means to the disease and its connection to immorality, the author states why doctors being infected is not a problem, because “of the minimal risk AIDS-infected doctors present to patients” (Lohr). This focuses once again on immoral people as the problem, due to the fact that they present the highest risk of transmitting the disease to others.
Six years after the Lohr article was published, in 1993, another article was published essentially backing up this idea. Published in the Wall Street Journal, “Rethinking AIDs” by Robert Root-Bernstein discusses a recent National Research Council report on AIDs. This report states that “that HIV infection and AIDS will remain limited to specific geographic areas and risk groups identified at the beginning of the epidemic: gay men and more particularly an ever-growing population of urban, drug-addicted, poverty-ridden, malnourished, hopeless and medically deprived people” (Root-Bernstein). This is trying to decrease public fear, but at the same time it further increases the idea that the disease is an immoral disease. The article then claims that “Immunologically healthy individuals seem to be immune” to AIDs, backing up its claims using evidence from the hemophiliacs who were infected. The fact that only about 10% of hemophiliacs developed AIDs after 10 years of being infected with HIV was compared to “the average time from infection to overt AIDS (based on studies of gay men and intravenous drug abusers) is 10 years” (Root-Bernstein).
Further validating his argument, Root-Bernstein states, “If HIV alone controlled AIDS, then about half of the people infected with HIV in 1983 should have developed AIDS by now, regardless of their mode of exposure” (Root-Bernstein). Root-Berstein is, at the time, making the logical argument that “the people who do get both HIV and AIDS have many additional immunosuppressive factors at work on them that predispose them to disease” (Root-Bernstein). This may have been considered a breakthrough at the time and even though it is based on facts and statistics, it is still biased. Root-Bernstein is taking the limited information of risk groups and susceptibility to AIDs to make broader claims. His argument is weakened because it focuses on limited data, and his claims that only people with additional immunosuppressive factors can get the disease is evidence of this.
People with additional immunosuppressive factors may be at high risk, but that does not directly mean that lower risk people can’t contract the disease, especially when the data available does not focus on various large groups of low risk individuals. Root-Bernstein concludes that “Controlling the factors that make one susceptible to HIV and AIDS may therefore turn out to be easier and more effective than targeting HIV itself,” essentially calling for control over the immoral and socially derelict behaviors that cause higher susceptibility, such as homosexuality and drug use. Root-Bernstein chooses control over immoral behaviors as the mode for controlling the epidemic, instead of promoting efforts in medicine, treatment, and public education of the disease to spread awareness. Root-Bernstein’s article is a clear example of the thought processes that prolonged the disease’s stigma in society, and prevented advancements in treatment and understanding of the disease.
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