HIV

Unfortunately, when Aaron steps out into the hallway, he hears Derek tell Kayla, like, you know, like, not to say anything bad about your dads, but, like, if I were you, like, I wouldn't share a glass with them, you know, because you never know.

So, ostensibly, out of the fear that one or both of them has HIV and that Kayla shouldn't share a glass with them

because she'll contract it.

And this is just me.

I don't, again, I don't know how things were in Canada, but as someone who grew up in the 90s, I feel like we talked about HIV and AIDS constantly.

Constantly.

And

we knew, at least as a child, like Kayla would know from her public school education, hopefully, or maybe she went to a private school, she doesn't know any of this, that you can't get HIV that way, that it is a sexually transmitted disease.

Welcome to HIV The Morning After.

I'm Dan Hall.

I'm a documentary producer and director.

I've spent my entire adult life watching ignorance and prejudice play out around HIV.

And frankly, I'm tired of it.

And I'm sure many of you are too.

Right then, let's get started.

In 2014, Juan Michael Porter II asked five doctors for PrEP, and five doctors said no.

Ingrid Gavshon is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, storyteller, educator and executive coach whose work has taken her from apartheid era South Africa to London and eventually to California.

In 1994, she founded Angel Films, through which she has produced and directed more than 50 films and documentary segments, exploring subjects including apartheid, human rights, HIV AIDS, the death penalty, gender equality, and the arts.

Her work has brought her into contact with extraordinary individuals, including Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Harry Belafonte.

But equally significant are the lives of people whose names may be less familiar.

She was 14 at the time.

She was looking after two brothers who were then, I think, 11 and 9 or 11 and 7.

And I had been approached, because I had done a film about death penalty and I'd done other films, I'd been approached by the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, where I'd shown some of my films, to pitch for an HIV, women's HIV film about, made by a woman filmmaker, by Stop AIDS Now.

And I had met a man who, at a conference and he was working in this deep rural area near the Kruger National Park in South Africa in the east.

We had Daya, who was the first drag queen on Fox.

the first out openly living with HIV player to play amongst 99 to beat.

You know, you had EP, you had so much good substance.

You have Kelly that I feel like even though it is a blessing as a good opportunity, there was also just a little bit of missed opportunities to showcase people that needed or that could provide that visibility for a broader audience.

And my mission really was to go there.

I wanted to win.

I wanted to do something, but I also wanted to share visibility for people that have HIV, for people that have been through some shit, that you don't have to stay where you're at, that you can literally be on the brink of you know, going through some shit.

I almost died at one point in my life.

It is a consolation for us to remember that we are mere channels and instruments of the great work of redemption and reconciliation that the Lord himself is about, that it is his heart, his business, and that we are his co-workers, his ambassadors.

I will never forget the words of my dear patient as she lay dying from HIV and advanced cervical cancer, leaving three young children behind.

And I told this story earlier.

Two of the children, three of the children, all of them were all HIV positive.

She was in pain despite our best efforts to relieve her.

And I said to her, I wish, I wish we could make it better for you.

In 1918 and 1919, between 30 and 50 million people died worldwide from influenza, the flu.

More than 25 million people have died from AIDS, while more than 35 million people currently live with HIV.

In recent years, we've tried to get our heads around some disturbing new diseases like H1N1, swine flu.

and SARS and Ebola.

And, you know, I try to be honest with people.

We were talking to about HIV the other day and they were saying, well, what made you make that decision to go? Commission Prep, for instance, or to set up the HIV Commission.

And the truth is that we ministers all want to have something that will long outlast our time in office.

And, you know, auto enrolment is definitely something I'm sure you dine out on a lot and you should be very proud of it.

And that's something I talk about quite a bit.

So there's this investigative journalist who has covered both COVID and he also covered HIV AIDS.

And his name is Eric Coppolino.

And he's done fantastic work on exposing the lack of evidence behind viruses, especially with respect to SARS-CoV-2.

And what he talks about in some of his articles is that we've moved from an analog world to a digital world.

And the reason HIV AIDS didn't take hold as much as it could have is because at the time we were still analog people.

Our perception of reality, yes, it was dictated by the media and government and mainstream institutions and the news, of course.

But now we have devices that we walk around with and are on eight to 10, if not more than that, hours a day that are dictating our entire perception of reality.