Helen Epstein’s chapter “AIDS, Inc.” definitely shed a light on the HIV disease and how outbreaks of this disease are not being handled correctly in some parts of the world. Her main goal was to talk about the difference between South American and big HIV prevention organizations such as loveLife and Uganda and more local, smaller organizations such as Inkanyezi. She begins talking about how protests against the health minister in South Africa about millions of people being denied medicine for the HIV disease had eventually led to the creation of the loveLife organization. The loveLife organization’s goals were to both “…overcome the limitations of similar campaigns that had failed in the past and, at the same time, to avoid dealing with the issues of AIDS treatment and care that had become so controversial” (Epstein, 111). I feel that this organization had good intentions behind it to decline the HIV rate. loveLife mainly just talked about protective sex rather than the HIV disease itself. . They even made Y- Centers where young people may do a variety of activities, such as playing sports, hanging out with friends, or even playing on computers. Y- Centers seemed to be solely focused on the social aspect of it rather than what the goal of the organization actually is. I believe that the organization got too caught up in the publicity and money that it lost sight of what really matters and that is informing young people about real world situations about HIV and not just how to prevent it. South Americans still had the mentality that people with HIV must feel alone ashamed about themselves. Nearby loveLife is Inkanyezi. Inkanyezi is a small, local organization that is ran by mostly all volunteers. The majority of people that go there are poor people of the community that loveLife would not accept. The morals of this organization seemed very similar to those of the people in Uganda. “The loveLife Y-center did little to help young people deal with such confusion, stigma, and shame” (Epstein, 115).Contrary to that, Inkanyezi and Uganda had different approaches than those of loveLife. It was just to talk about it, in Uganda their HIV rate had fallen about two-thirds by just talking to people “…not about sex, but about the frightening, calamitous effects of AIDS itself” (Epstein, 116). This connects with the ideas of Hallward in that sharing stories and talking about the aspects in life that are hard to talk about is how we heal. The HIV decline in Uganda is proof of Hallwards claims. Overall, this reading made me realize the actual reasons of why HIV is skyrocketing in South America. It is not because of health care but it is about the culture. If it was in the norm for people in South America to talk about HIV and the real, nasty parts of it then I bet their HIV rates would also significantly decrease.
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