| World AIDS Day is December 1, 2011 and PBS stations across the country will begin airing 30 Years Positive, an episode of the award-winning documentary series "In the Life" that looks back at multiple decades of media coverage of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The episode also premieres online in commemoration of the day held annually for the global community to gather in the fight against the disease, to show support for people living with HIV and to remember those who have passed.
According to Eleanor Moonier, a spokesperson for In the Life Media, 30 years after the first AIDS case was reported in the United States, more than a million Americans are HIV-positive, that most recent statistics report that one in five HIV-positive Americans don’t know they are HIV-positive, and that 56,000 are newly infected each year. However, mainstream media coverage has given little attention to the epidemic’s ongoing impact, Moonier reports.
Says Marjorie J. Hill, PhD, chief executive officer of GMHC, in the episode: “We’ve been able to stabilize the HIV epidemic - not stop, not reduce - stabilize.”
The episode concludes with a frank discussion about HIV prevention and the National AIDS Strategy featuring Gun Hill Road actress Harmony Santana and Reverend Charles King, CEO of Housing Works, who criticizes the White House for inaction on the epidemic, saying: “I feel that President Obama needs to be called on HIV and AIDS just like President Bush needed to be called on it.”
For free video streaming and downloadable podcasting from the Life Media website go here. Go Back |
