AIDS and stigma ravage US South (video)

BBC Series on AIDS and HIV as the UN marks World Aids Day, Dec. 2011

VIDEO: In Clover, SC, one family (among 5,100) has lost eight members to AIDS (BBC).

A conspiracy of hypocrisy, shame, cowardice, and...opportunism
-Andrew Skerritt, author on AIDS epidemic in South

Lingering stigma helps AIDS epidemic ravage US South

The American South has been quietly ravaged by HIV/AIDS, even as the rest of the US has made great advances in [symptomatic] treatment and prevention.

As Michael Maher reports, the conservative [Bible Belt] region's reluctance to speak publicly about the epidemic has hampered its ability to fight it. About this time every year, the Reverend Patricia Starr runs a Christmas drive for HIV-positive children in the small town of Clover in the state of South Carolina. A few years ago, she recalls, one boy asked her for a telescope so he could look up to heaven, where he expected to be soon.

Four months after receiving the Christmas gift he was dead, another HIV/AIDS victim for Clover's graveyards. ''The cemeteries keep getting larger,'' says Ms. Starr. ''They keep pushing the woods back and making more graves.'' More

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