HIV Tests = results, not answers – shout out for a call in.

The battle between the irrational Scott and the rational Scott raged even as the needle went it. I knew the facts. So why was the decision so hard? As the nurse finished drawing my blood I was still afraid of being tested for HIV.

We’ve been running scared from AIDS for over 25 years now. And the fear is killing too many of us.

Today we know much about this virus that has led to an epidemic. We know how to protect ourselves from HIV infection – condoms and clean needles. We know how HIV is communicated – and, more importantly, how it isn’t. Though we don’t know hot to cure HIV infection yet, we have tremendous treatments that have converted a fatal disease into a chronic manageable health condition. Move over diabetes and high blood pressure, HIV infection will soon be added to the list of things that people live with instead of dying from.

But we are slow to understand what AIDS requires of us. Despite all our knowledge about HIV, the AIDS infection rate has changed little in the last five years. And most people in the U.S. are sick with AIDS before they even learn they are infected with HIV. Learning you are HIV-infected late makes treatment less successful and more expensive. Fighting the AIDS epidemic requires that we know our HIV status.

I knew all that. But I was still afraid of the test. Fear is fact’s most powerful adversary. But I was either HIV positive or HIV negative. The test wasn’t going change that. What mattered was what I did with the information the test provided. Bottom line, the HIV test doesn’t contain answers – just results. The real answers come in the way we use the information.

In the AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement Project (http://www.nmi.uga.edu/aids_ppsa/), we have set our sights on convincing young people to know their status by being tested for HIV. On November 7th, we will be producing video messages designed to encourage HIV testing. We know the biggest challenge will be overcoming the fear of HIV testing. Here is where you can help. What you think frightens people the most about HIV testing?

Call this number 706.542.2857 (press option “2”) and tell us (in less than a minute) what you think scares young people the most about being tested for HIV. We plan to use some of these answers in the podcasts we are creating for the AIDS Personal Public Service Announcement Project (more on that below).

We really appreciate your help.