Sorting through the myth words
p. 58 · Read in the full issue
WATCH your language when
talking about AIDS/HIV, says New Zealand Aids Foundation advocate Jenny Rankine. The persistence of words and phrases that imply certain groups are running around deliberately infecting “innocent” people stems from assumptions about gay men, drug users and prostitutes which government de partments, the medical establishment and the media have in Pacific countries.
And in the rest of the world.
Even the use of the word “AIDS” itself
is alarmist and often misplaced.
For example, use of the phrase “AIDS virus” confuses HIV with the life threatening phase of HIV infection and equates infection with death. Only a small proportion of people who get HIV develop actual AIDS symptoms.
“AIDS test” Using this phrase im
plies that being HIV antibody positive
means you’ll automatically get AIDS, or that they’re the same.
Not so. It is actually an HIV antibody test.
AIDS means acquired immune de ficiency syndrome a series of symp toms pointing to the health condition.
Yet AIDS is often referred to as a disease. A disease sounds highly infec tious and easily spread. When compared to Hepatatis B, HIV is hard to catch.
This confusion contributes to an irra tional fear about infection.
And somebody who has HIV is not an AIDS carrier.
“Bad language about AIDS, language which blocks prevention efforts, will in volve challenges to medical, media and government responses to the epidemic,'’ says Rankine. D [