Dying of Ignorance?
In 1987 the British government launched a major public heath campaign warning of the dangers of what was then a new killer disease - AIDS. Every household in the country received a leaflet entitled 'AIDS - 'Don't die of ignorance'. This was accompanied by two nightmarish TV advertisements featuring the violent eruption of a volcano, a crumbling iceberg and the four apocalyptic letters
A-I-D-S being chiselled into a gravestone to the strains of the latin hymn for the dead 'Dies Irae' ('Day of Wrath'). The chilling voice-over by John Hurt explained the dangers of this terrifying new phenomenon and gave a stark warning: 'If you ignore AIDS, it could be the death of you.'
This campaign was both a major success and a disastrous failure.
It was a success because it did indeed strike terror into people's hearts. Everyone was aware of this new health threat and suddenly became fearful of 'catching AIDS' (sic). Ironically - and tragically - it was so succesful in this regard that it created an enormous stigma around AIDS and those living with the condition. In the face of a threat, human nature often instinctively looks for a way to deny the reality of the threat. The campaign colluded with this instinct and effectively diverted people's attention away from their own sexual health and the responsibility to look after themselves and their sexual partners to finding someone to blame for this new development.
The media didn't help. The 'red-tops' quickly latched on to the fact that it seemed to be the gay community that was most affected, and 'The Sun' had the notorious headline 'The Gay Plague!'. This fed the general hysteria and gave rise to a violent wave of homophobia that has even now not fully subsided.
In reality of course, as everyone eventually realised, AIDS was a medical syndrome caused by a retro-virus - HIV - which was transmitted through sexual contact or through contaminated blood products. It couldn't possibly be passed on through any kind of everyday contact; but people were so scared of those whom they mistakenly believed could easily infect them with HIV - in particular those whom they either knew or suspected to be gay - that they would literally avoid them like the plague.
I did voluntary work with people living with HIV for a number of years before taking up the post of the Bishop of Leicester's chaplain to people affected by HIV in 2005. Even then, although people understood far more about HIV, and despite significant advances in its treatment, the stigma lived on. I used to regularly hear stories of how someone living with HIV would offer a visitor a cup of tea or coffee only for the guest to visibly recoil in horror at the very suggestion. At my office base, workmen would sometimes refuse to use our WC, and on several occasions when I was being introduced to someone they would extend a friendly hand, only to retract it hastily when they realised what job I did.
The 'Don't Die of Ignorance' campaign generated a fear way beyond what was realistically required, and this fear, fuelled by irresponsible reporting by parts of the media, scapegoated one particular section of the community. The corrupted message heard by many was 'Be afraid, be VERY afraid of gay people' but you don't need to worry about AIDS if you're straight'. With its instinct for burying its head in the sand and longing for everything to be 'normal' again, the public missed the real point of the government's message and became complacent, and HIV took a firm foothold in the hetersosexual community.
I suspect it's because of my past involvement in HIV work that I find much of the public response to Covid-19 quite inexplicable.
Coronavirus can be passed on through everyday contact. It is much more easily passed on than HIV, and yet it seems people are far less afraid of it. I suspect that many of those who would have applied (or indeed might still apply) a quite extreme social-distancing when in the company of someone with HIV are not attempting to do so at-all to protect themselves (never mind others) from Covid-19. This is quite bizarre and, of course, extremely dangerous.
Compared to the AIDS campaign of 1987, the public health messages around Covid-19 have been pretty meally-mouthed and ineffectual. I'm not for a moment suggesting that we once again need the excesses of volcanoes, icebergs and gravestones, but I do wonder if perhaps we have erred too much in the opposite direction.
The risk of scapegoating, of course, remains. With HIV/AIDS members of the heterosexual community were able to switch off to the problem and pretend that all was well on the basis that it only affected the gays. They didn't need to engage realistically with the threat or look honestly at the riskiness of their own sexual behaviour. In doing so, they created a more hostile environment for the LGBT+ community whilst also putting both themselves and the wider community at greater risk - the risk of dying of ignorance.
This time I fear that the scapegoat could be the BAME communities. The notion that 'they're the only ones really affected' could once again soon morph into 'They're the ones to blame'. We love to let ourselves off the hook; we love to have someone to blame. We therefore need a powerful, realistic and balanced public health message to challenge those tendencies and indeed to save lives.
A-I-D-S being chiselled into a gravestone to the strains of the latin hymn for the dead 'Dies Irae' ('Day of Wrath'). The chilling voice-over by John Hurt explained the dangers of this terrifying new phenomenon and gave a stark warning: 'If you ignore AIDS, it could be the death of you.'
This campaign was both a major success and a disastrous failure.
It was a success because it did indeed strike terror into people's hearts. Everyone was aware of this new health threat and suddenly became fearful of 'catching AIDS' (sic). Ironically - and tragically - it was so succesful in this regard that it created an enormous stigma around AIDS and those living with the condition. In the face of a threat, human nature often instinctively looks for a way to deny the reality of the threat. The campaign colluded with this instinct and effectively diverted people's attention away from their own sexual health and the responsibility to look after themselves and their sexual partners to finding someone to blame for this new development. The media didn't help. The 'red-tops' quickly latched on to the fact that it seemed to be the gay community that was most affected, and 'The Sun' had the notorious headline 'The Gay Plague!'. This fed the general hysteria and gave rise to a violent wave of homophobia that has even now not fully subsided.
In reality of course, as everyone eventually realised, AIDS was a medical syndrome caused by a retro-virus - HIV - which was transmitted through sexual contact or through contaminated blood products. It couldn't possibly be passed on through any kind of everyday contact; but people were so scared of those whom they mistakenly believed could easily infect them with HIV - in particular those whom they either knew or suspected to be gay - that they would literally avoid them like the plague.
I did voluntary work with people living with HIV for a number of years before taking up the post of the Bishop of Leicester's chaplain to people affected by HIV in 2005. Even then, although people understood far more about HIV, and despite significant advances in its treatment, the stigma lived on. I used to regularly hear stories of how someone living with HIV would offer a visitor a cup of tea or coffee only for the guest to visibly recoil in horror at the very suggestion. At my office base, workmen would sometimes refuse to use our WC, and on several occasions when I was being introduced to someone they would extend a friendly hand, only to retract it hastily when they realised what job I did.
The 'Don't Die of Ignorance' campaign generated a fear way beyond what was realistically required, and this fear, fuelled by irresponsible reporting by parts of the media, scapegoated one particular section of the community. The corrupted message heard by many was 'Be afraid, be VERY afraid of gay people' but you don't need to worry about AIDS if you're straight'. With its instinct for burying its head in the sand and longing for everything to be 'normal' again, the public missed the real point of the government's message and became complacent, and HIV took a firm foothold in the hetersosexual community.
I suspect it's because of my past involvement in HIV work that I find much of the public response to Covid-19 quite inexplicable.
Coronavirus can be passed on through everyday contact. It is much more easily passed on than HIV, and yet it seems people are far less afraid of it. I suspect that many of those who would have applied (or indeed might still apply) a quite extreme social-distancing when in the company of someone with HIV are not attempting to do so at-all to protect themselves (never mind others) from Covid-19. This is quite bizarre and, of course, extremely dangerous.
Compared to the AIDS campaign of 1987, the public health messages around Covid-19 have been pretty meally-mouthed and ineffectual. I'm not for a moment suggesting that we once again need the excesses of volcanoes, icebergs and gravestones, but I do wonder if perhaps we have erred too much in the opposite direction.
The risk of scapegoating, of course, remains. With HIV/AIDS members of the heterosexual community were able to switch off to the problem and pretend that all was well on the basis that it only affected the gays. They didn't need to engage realistically with the threat or look honestly at the riskiness of their own sexual behaviour. In doing so, they created a more hostile environment for the LGBT+ community whilst also putting both themselves and the wider community at greater risk - the risk of dying of ignorance.
This time I fear that the scapegoat could be the BAME communities. The notion that 'they're the only ones really affected' could once again soon morph into 'They're the ones to blame'. We love to let ourselves off the hook; we love to have someone to blame. We therefore need a powerful, realistic and balanced public health message to challenge those tendencies and indeed to save lives.
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