Former minister is HIV positive
Hold up! Before you read on, please read this...
This post was published more than 13 years ago
I keep old posts on the site because I often enjoy reading old content on other people's sites. Not everything that is old is bad. It can be interesting to see how views have changed over time: for example, how my strident teenage views have mellowed and matured.
But given the age of this post, please bear in mind:
- My views might very well have changed in the 13 years since I wrote this post. I have written some very silly things over the years, many of which I find pretty embarrassing today.
- This post might use language in ways which I would now consider highly inappropriate or offensive.
- Factual information might be outdated.
- Links might be broken; embedded material might not appear properly.
Okay. Consider yourself duly warned. Read on...
This article from BBC News says that
The former Labour culture secretary, Chris Smith, has revealed he has been HIV positive for 17 years.
This shouldn’t be big news. The more that HIV is treated like some terrible disease that has to be ‘announced’, the greater the stigma that will be attached to it. Chris Smith was right to make it public that he has HIV (he makes a very convincing argument for doing so in today’s Sunday Times), but the media are wrong to make such a big fuss about it.
This 280th post was filed under: News and Comment, Politics.