World Aids Day

I didn't write an entry on World Aids Day on Dec 1. I cannot name friends* who have died of Aids or are living with HIV because here, I cannot out them and have them oustracised by a disease that will claim them. But not before I do whatever I can to stop it, so help me goD.

*Except for Paddy, that is. I was quite amused to see that he has an entry in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Chew
The English is a little stilted and in some places, it's a little hard to understand. But Paddy would have loved it. But I don't think he's resting in peace, though. He's probably bitching away at how utterly useless we are, having been left to carry the Aids advocacy torch but achieving little. Actually, with the exception of the 24-hour cremation after an Aids death rule lifted, I can't think of anything that has changed since he died. Oh yes, maybe a hundred or so dollars more a year you can use from Medisave to pay for antiretrovirals that can cost up to $1,000 a month.

Every May and December, every Candlelight Memorial and World Aids Day, I hold in my heart those that have gone, those that remain, those whose names I cannot say.

And every May and December, something ticks me off and I remember Anita Roddick's words about how it's actually good to get angry because it fans the fire in your belly to go do something about it. And then feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall after listening or reading to some minister say something really mind-boggling. All this time, it has been a junior health minister doing the talking, and now, he's not even holding the health portfolio. I still haven't heard the health minister address the issue.

On World Aids Day, the broadsheet ran a full page interview with the no-longer junior health minister who said the mistake made was not treating HIV like any other disease and apply public health principles. It took him three years after SARS to say what Action for Aids had been saying then.

And his answer to the suggestion that the reporter put to him that HIV should get more resources because of its potential of becoming an epidemic owing to its exponential spread (hugely loaded question because I am so aware that every cent Action for Aids raises is wrestled from the Cancer Society, the National Kidney Foundation, etc): "So because the cancer patient cannot go and spread it to somebody but the HIV patient can, we should give it to him so he can go and spread it to somebody? I don't see the logic. The question is this: Antiretroviral medication doesn't stop the numbers from growing... In fact, if you look at it the other way round, it's the opposite. If we give you antiretroviral medication, you are well, you have more sex, you spread more..."

What is he saying? That if you have HIV, you might as well crawl into a corner and die? Hello? Aids education? Condoms? Safe sex? And what about paediatric Aids? So the growing segment of new infections are from hetero men who get the virus through unsafe sex but that's not to say that virgins and nuns have a biological immunity to the virus too. The virus does not discriminate. People, unfortunately, do. Antiretrovirals stop the virus from reproducing, it allows an HIV+ person to live a normal life, hold down a job, support his family, raise his children and pay his taxes. Which part of that is draining state coffers?

Brick wall. And it's not just the ministers. Even the retailers are against us. What really sparked this entry was that today, I tried to buy a Red Edition iPod. I had been dithering about buying an iPod since getting this iBook and getting hooked on iTunes. I didn't need an iPod. But since I found out about Red Edition products (www.joinred.com), I thought I might as well buy one of those. I can afford it and someone can benefit from it.

And was told that I couldn't. It's a USA-only thing, the salesman (sorry, Mac evangelists, they are called) at the Apple shop said. Actually, that's not true. The UK newspaper, The Independent, has a Red Edition. If a newspaper can do it, I don't see why it's so hard to get Apple/Motorola/Armani to import Red Edition products, it can't cost more than their normal products, I mean everything's imported anyway. I'm not a shopper. I don't care about labels and brands. But if I'm going to buy something, I might as well make my consumer dollar work extra and buy a Red Edition product. I was quite set to buy Red Edition gifts this Christmas. I thought it was quite the Christmas spirit. Your friends get your gift and someone who needs Aids medication also benefits from what you've bought.

But noooo, not in Singapore.

Brick wall.