Our treatment of HIV has advanced. Why hasn't the stigma changed? | Arik Hartmann
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
The treatment of HIV has significantly advanced over the past three decades -- why hasn't our perception of people with the disease advanced along with it? After being diagnosed with HIV, Arik Hartmann chose to live transparently, being open about his status, in an effort to educate people. In this candid, personal talk, he shares what it's like to live with HIV -- and calls on us to dismiss our misconceptions about the disease.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This TED Talk features ecology researcher Eric Hartman, recorded live at TEDx Vermillion Street, 2016. |
| 0:10.0 | So I want to start this talk by showing you all a photo, and it's a photo many of you have probably seen before. |
| 0:17.0 | So I want you all to take a moment and look at this photo |
| 0:21.6 | and really reflect on some of the things that come to mind, |
| 0:24.6 | and what are some of those things, those words. |
| 0:27.6 | Now, I'm going to ask you all to look at me. |
| 0:32.6 | What words come to mind when you look at me? |
| 0:36.6 | What separates that man up there from me? |
| 0:43.4 | The man in that photo is named David Kirby, and it was taken in 1990 as he was dying from |
| 0:48.2 | AIDS-related illness, and it was subsequently published in Life magazine. |
| 0:52.9 | The only real thing separating me from Kirby is about 30 years of medical advancements |
| 0:59.0 | in the way that we treat HIV and AIDS. |
| 1:02.0 | So what I want to ask next is this. |
| 1:07.0 | If we have made such exponential progress in combating HIV, |
| 1:11.6 | why haven't our perceptions of those with the virus evolved alongside? |
| 1:15.6 | Why does HIV elicit this reaction from us when it's so easily managed? |
| 1:21.6 | When did the stigmatization even occur? |
| 1:25.6 | And why hasn't it subsided? |
| 1:30.3 | And these are not easy questions to answer. |
| 1:33.3 | They're the congealing of so many different factors and ideas. |
| 1:37.3 | Powerful images, like this one of Kirby, these were the faces of the AIDS crisis in the 80s and |
| 1:42.3 | 90s. |
... |
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