Oh dear! What a pity the volunteers for Care in East London & Essex are incensed (letters, PN Dec/Jan) when they see Aids instead of AIDS. There are so many much more important matters to be incensed about.
Chris Birch, London SW6
A few lines to support Glynis Feist. I have been irritated by the trend to refer to AIDS as Aids. Acronyms are spelled with capital letters, so why the change? To my mind, the respelling only serves to diminish the visual impact or stimulus that capital letters command. You are in effect adding to ‘the downgrading’ of the illness that has been happening for years. I have raised this point at my local support group, several times, and I have been met with the general idea that it is not that important. As someone who has been living with HIV for quite a long time now, I am all too used to being overlooked or ignored. Please do not ignore the plea from Glynis, and now myself.
David Hewett, By Email
Adrian, Derbyshire
Glynis Feist’s letter opens up the debate on what is the appropriate way to address a phenomenon that threatens the entire human race. AIDS as four capital letters may be typographically correct; but for the majority of us who do not work with the medical facts, it is reality that is important, not literal accuracy. We are all familiar in the UK with the early health warnings in which a huge slab had those four bold capitals chiselled into it, representing the monolithic horror of AIDS as a fatal disease. Upper-case ‘AIDS’ was there to scare us. But then terms like ‘positively living’ entered our vocabulary and we began to learn that it was possible to exist with AIDS, but without perpetual fear. We learned that it was not ‘just’ an illness, but a complex phenomenon that challenged all levels of society. I don’t wish to detract from those who hold that AIDS should be AIDS, but in my view the printing of ‘Aids’ perhaps shows a heartfelt desire not to be frightened by a word again.