The Chinese Province of Henan has banned a conference that would have assembled 30 Chinese AIDS activists to discuss combating the disease. Officials say that the conference was illegal because it was unregistered. The federal government recently banned another meeting where Chinese and foreign activists planned to discuss the discrimination against HIV-positive people and the safety of the blood supply.
The impoverished farming community of Henan was especially hard hit in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when farmers contracted the virus by selling their blood to the government.
The AIDS activist who first uncovered the contaminated blood-buying programs in rural communities in the early 1990s, Gao Yaojie, came into conflict with Henan officials earlier this year when she traveled to Washington, DC to receive a human rights award.
Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I recently met a guy who is negative. I did tell him about my status and he decided to kiss me anyway (we didn't go further than that). But a day later, he called and said that he actually had a mouth ulcer that time when we kissed and he was very worried. Asked if he can get the virus from me that way. For that moment, I felt so insulted and yet I felt so bad. It was my first time having a contact with a "negative" guy."
