A serious topic - really, i'm not joking
So I was reading this article. My first thought when I saw the headline - before actually reading the article - was, "Princess Diana didn't have AIDS, did she?" So as I read on, I realized she was a huge AIDS activist, not a victim.
I'm not sure how one thought led to another, but somehow I started thinking about "celebrities" that have had AIDS. The first name that popped into my head was Magic. No last name required for most of you reading this. Although Magic's HIV never turned into full-blown AIDS, I think he was the first big celebrity to be diagnosed with the virus, at least in the U.S. I still remember the day the announcement was made, and how shocked everyone was at school the next day. [sidebar - i just tried to remember the year that the announcement came, and I thought it was 1991. Sure enough, it was November of 1991 - I am not a Lakers fan, so I was impressed with my memory]
So I pose a question to anyone and everyone out there - was what happened to Magic a good thing? Maybe it's an obvious "Yes", since it brought a lot of attention to the disease, safe sex, etc. Maybe it's an obvious "No", since a hero to many people was forced to retire from the game to battle this tragic disease (though he did later un-retire). Maybe it's somewhere in between.
As for me, I lean pretty strongly towards the Yes camp. I am not a Lakers fan, so Magic was not really a hero to me, though as a huge NBA fan, I obviously admired his game and success. He has gone on to live a relatively healthy life (though he is quite fat), and is now a very successful businessman in Southern California. Most importantly, without having any statistics to back this up, from my naive perspective, I have to assume that what happened to him somehow lowered unprotected sex and thus HIV incidence somewhere - maybe throughout the US, maybe throughout California, or maybe just in Southern California, or Inglewood (always up to no good). On the other hand, if he hadn't retired, maybe that God-awful late-night show he hosted, The Magic Hour never would have happened.
Anyways - I'm curious to hear people's feedback/thoughts on this. Especially the doctors out there.
Labels: Randomness
posted by yat @ 1:21 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
quite creepy ... but wikipedia has a list of "famous" HIV-positive people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HIV-positive_individuals
aight, here's what i think. the day magic announced his retirement was one of the truly sad days i remember in my childhood. magic was HUGE to me. part of my lakers, a charismatic playmaker who i tirelessly tried to emulate on the court. he brought lakers "showtime". so i hated it that he had contracted HIV. and think his stature has definitely elevated the awareness of HIV in this country, and maybe to some degree taken away some of the stigma. what i think is harder to deal with is reconciling that a disease that for most is soooo freakin deadly is hardly affecting his day to day life because he can afford world-class health care. i'm sure while he brings hope to a lot of infected out there, i've got to imagine they look at this success with a grain of salt. i dunno...just thoughts from the top of my dome...
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