while sick or living on £40 a week?
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Getting a high level of benefit support is as random as a lottery ticket.
These days two people can find themselves on completely different levels
of financial support, unrelated to need. For example, I recently met someone
with PML (a condition that causes brain damage) who doesn't even get income
support. His friend, who is also positive but in fantastic health, gets
the maximum amount of benefit support available.
We need a national project addressing benefit inequalities like this.
The actual level of benefit inequality among positive people needs to
be researched and addressed now, with recommendations sent to the relevant
government bodies concerned.
Positive Nation magazine regularly publishes aggressive drug company advertising.
How is it possible for a magazine reader to make an informed choice about
when to start combination therapy when drug company adverts receive so
much more prominence in your magazine than NAM's Aids Treatment Update?
How balanced is your editorial policy? Is it fair and responsible for
a UK Coalition of People with HIV to accept money for promoting drug company
products?
Your survival as an organisation may depend on drug company advertising,
but for some of us our survival depends on you. We require a balanced
presentation of the facts regarding HIV treatments. Adverts can be as
seductive as they are misleading.
And what about organisations who say that they cannot accept applications
