Charlie Sheen: Commentary from Australian HIV advocates

On 17 November the news broke that actor Charlie Sheen was about to do an interview in which he would disclose that he had HIV. 

On 18 November this rumour was confirmed, with Sheen announcing that he had been living with HIV since 2011, had an undetectable viral load, and had been blackmailed to the tune of millions of dollars by people to whom he’d disclosed.

Social and online media exploded, and concern about the potentially stigmatising impact on people with HIV was uppermost in the minds of HIV advocates around the world. Organisations such as AFAO and our members rapidly put out media statements or circulated information to encourage the media to report sensitively.

On the positive side, the media circus provided an opportunity to raise awareness about HIV and publicise accurate information to counter the decades-old myths that still circulate.

This blog post links to Australian community media and HIV sector responses to Charlie Sheen’s disclosure.

If you have links to other useful Australian stories commenting on Charlie Sheen, please post them in the comments.

Are Young Gay Men really so different?

On Thursday 20^th February AFAO hosted an after hours session at the Social Research Conference on HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Related Diseases. Chaired by AFAO’s Sally Cameron, the session provided a venue for the consideration of the specific HIV health promotion needs of young gay men.

Going social

Social media & Web 2.0 are now such a ‘given’ in health promotion and HIV prevention work that having a session dedicated to social media at a conference almost becomes redundant. The recent AFAO/NAPWA Gay Men’s Health Promotion Conference was no exception, with social media and the web ubiquitous throughout the program.

A number of presentations – such as Carlos Sepulvada’s Down an’ dirty presentation, or Nadine Toussaint’s 1 Community – described how interactive websites, Facebook, and other online strategies contributed to community engagement and effective promotion of key messages. Often, as in the case of the 1 Community anti-stigma campaign, the online component was carefully integrated with offline activities.