A couple of contrasting studies of the life expectancies of people with HIV
appeared recently.
One was from Denmark. It found that people with HIV on treatment there have
achieved something that was once, not too many years ago, cited as a wild hope. “One
of these days, HIV will become a controllable long-term medical condition,
like diabetes,” we used to say.
Well, it’s come true. The Danish study found that HIV positive people
on treatment had exactly the same average life expectancy as people with insulin-dependent
diabetes.
Like diabetics, as we age, we may expect to get more illnesses of certain
types, such as heart attacks and some kinds of cancer. But we are well
within the
range of ‘normal’ life expectancy; not as we used to be, a generation
doomed to an early death. If we live in a prosperous northern European country
with minimal social inequality and a public health system, that is.
The other study came from another prosperous country, the USA. It was of
women with HIV in the northern cities of the world’s hyperpower.
It found that their life expectancy didn’t change at all between 1993 and 2000. To these women, the HIV drugs - which became available halfway through that period - made no difference at all. In 1993 they were 15 times more likely to die than their HIV negative sisters. In 1999 they were still 15 times more likely to die. Deaths due to Aids-related conditions went down, yes. But all other causes of death, ranging from dirty-needle blood poisoning to murder, went up.
Why? Because, the study found, American women who get HIV tend to be poor. And black. And either use intravenous drugs or are dependent on others like crack. And sometimes rely on sex work to pay the drugs or just to survive. And slip through the gaping holes in the US health system. That’s why.
And, as we pointed out last month, if the UK goes down the road of refusing
HIV treatment to disenfranchised, undocumented, invisible immigrants,
it will happen here too. And, as Crusaid points out in this issue,
it may
also start
happening among the young, often black, often homeless gay men their
hardship fund is finding it increasingly hard to support.
There is concern that the World Health Organisation’s push to get three
million people with HIV on treatment by 2005 will end up with the pushiest,
most educated three million of the 10 million who need it getting treatment.
And then Aids will become exactly what Thabo Mbeki, for all the wrong reasons, says it already is: a disease of the poor.
This is Positive Nation issue 100. It is also the last to be edited by Gus Cairns and Rose de Freitas. We can’t tell you who the new editor is yet because as we went to press the interviews were still to be done. But we know, from the candidates, that he or she will be damn good at their job.
To accommodate the change, PN will take a month’s break and be back in
April.
Editing this magazine has been an extraordinary challenge and opportunity
for both of us. Neither of us were career journalists, although Rose had
previous
experience in publishing.
Gus had come from expecting to die of Aids and had no experience other than
an English degree and the expertise of living with the virus. He leaves to
set up business as a freelance therapist and HIV consultant - and will continue
to contribute to PN.
We leave Positive Nation having edited a magazine that we think is a unique
resource for people living with HIV and that can hold its head up among some
much more renowned publications.
We could do a long Oscar speech of thanks for everyone who’s supported
our time at the magazine, but you know who you are. What we would like to do,
however, is thank the UKC for doing exactly what it says on the tin: supporting
people involved with HIV in the UK to reach their full potential.
Gus Cairns, Editor in Chief
