Three Dollar Bill

No silver bullet

Richard Burnett / threedollarbill@vueweekly.com

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Celebrated American author Charles Kaiser and I were vilified in the pages of the U.S. national glossy magazine POZ for trashing HIV-positive people who spread AIDS. But if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: If you deliberately infect yourself with HIV—or, worse, knowingly infect others with HIV—then who are you to play God?

But the folks over at POZ—a magazine about “Health, Hope and HIV”—slugged their August feature story “Bite the Bullet” and zeroed in on me and Kaiser. “Anti-PWA rhetoric spewed from HIV-negative gay journalists, such as Charles Kaiser, who told the New York Times, ‘A person who is HIV-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person’s head.’” That’s just the beginning.

“Equating HIVers with murderers,” POZ continued, “Kaiser’s ‘bullet’ was the pitch-perfect soundbite, and the press declared open season on risk-taking HIVers. Hearing hate speech from so close to home stunned many HIVers. In June, Canadian gay columnist Richard Burnett added: ‘If you want to play God, spread HIV and ruin other lives in the process—then do us all a goddamn favour and put a fucking bullet through your head instead.’”

Well, as you can imagine, that went over like a bomb. Some folks accused me of nuking my own people. One best friend was so furious he snarled he could “slit” my throat. But the global HIV pandemic continues to spread like wildfire. As I predicted years ago, the worst-case scenario tipping point will come when AIDS explodes in India. When that day comes—and it is coming soon—the world could well be on its way to a billion deaths from AIDS this century.

Some bigots will say AIDS is merely modern-day Darwinism foisted on an overpopulated planet that isn’t white or straight enough. But as AIDS continues to fell our loved ones, already others are getting sick and tired of paying the healthcare bills.

In Canada, our great nation’s overburdened universal public healthcare system is under siege—not just from AIDS patients, of course, but from smokers and owners of gas-guzzling, smoke-spewing SUVs who don’t look at their contributions to the world’s ailments as a drain on the public purse. In other words, the world needs a new scapegoat.

So people spreading HIV are making all of our lives a living hell, and it’s going to get worse in the coming days as governments and authorities worldwide wonder how to manage gay life and the spiraling costs of gay healthcare.

Even POZ noted in their cover story that “People with HIV alone do have the power to stop new infections—and not only through facing fears of disclosure and always protecting sex partners, as profoundly important as those are. The personal responsibility that is increasingly focused on all HIVers also offers the chance for our community to be leaders once again in prevention.”

So we are now all pointing fingers. Meanwhile, authorities worldwide are clamping down on “HIV criminals” with much zeal. Few cases have drawn as much publicity as that of 29-year-old Trevis Smith, a linebacker with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. The Alabama native and married father of two was arrested October 28 at his Regina home and charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault. Police publicly disclosed Smith’s serostatus and accused him of knowing he was HIV-positive but of not telling a B.C. woman he was having an affair with. The Roughriders then suspended Smith, even though he is innocent until proven guilty and a 1992 NFL study reports only a one-in-85 million chance of HIV contraction through player-to-player onfield contact.

In Ottawa, the Canadian AIDS Society warns against criminal prosecutions to deal with HIV transmission. “Treating HIV-positive people like criminals only creates an environment of fear and increases stigma and discrimination toward people living with HIV,” says CAS executive director Paul Lapierre. “Studies show that most people living with HIV tell their sexual partners about their HIV status and take the necessary precautions to prevent HIV transmission. [Trevis Smith’s] case is not reflective of the way most people living with HIV behave.”

That may be true, but a September 2003 New Orleans study reported more than 75 per cent of HIV-positive people do not reveal their HIV status to casual sex partners—which, quite frankly, isn’t a big deal unless you have unsafe sex. In other words, assume everyone you sleep with has HIV because the asshole you’re fucking may not tell you.

As for the good folks over at CAS and POZ magazine, let us also remember it is HIV-positive people who are carrying the loaded gun. So bite the bullet, indeed. V

Three Dollar Bill

No silver bullet

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