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“I have HIV and I need AZT.” That day, a man appeared in the huge studio 1 of Radio Municipal was Roberto Jáuregui, one of the first and most powerful voices with a first and last name of the HIV epidemic in Argentina. This is just one of the anecdotes he remembers Paula Andaló in his book The media virus. How HIV broke into the media and changed the rules, exclusive content from Leamos.
40 years after the first cases of HIV / AIDS became known, the essay investigates how the irruption of the virus in the media in Argentina and the United States was consolidated, the role of science and activism, and the incredible similarity with the pandemic. With a foreword by the renowned infectologist and Scientific Director of Fundación Hupedes, Pedro Cahn, the book is a reflection on promising treatments and impossible vaccines, the mirror of our fears, stigmas and discrimination. And, also, about the secrets of sexuality, and the depth of what could be going on in our blood. Everything in the public eye.
With more than 25 years of experience as a health writer and editor, in a career developed in Argentina and the United States, Paula Andaló not only created the award-winning Health section of the Clarín newspaper and was focused for many years on the coverage of the HIV / AIDS but also covered three international conferences in South Africa, Switzerland and the United States. That is to say, is one of the pioneers in responsible management of the issue in Argentina, and presents us in El virus mediaiático a detailed account of how Argentine journalism treated and “un-treated” this issue.
From war metaphors to inclusive language, from the “infected” to “the person living with HIV / AIDS”, HIV has drawn a completely new journey in the coverage of health issues and in journalistic language in general. They began to think about the correct vocabulary and words: the weight of semantics made the difference between demonizing or not, for example, when referring to the “pink plague”. Why did some media use pejorative and yellow terms? Was fear the journalistic bet of the moment?
Then a historic opportunity presented itself: writers and editors, radio and television hosts and mobiles set aside hard lab data for the first time and spoke of the virus from life histories. Thus, patients stopped being numbers and became people and were encouraged to speak. They came together, formed organizations, gave them a collective voice from a totally new angle to the debates on health policies, access to medical care, complaints about the prices of medicines.
“Have you never had to practice ‘social distancing’ before?” His son Brandon asked Andaló when the coronavirus burst onto the scene. The journalist recalled and in her book affirms “Where is the coronavirus? Now we can say the same thing we said 40 years ago about HIV: we can all be living with HIV; We can all be living with coronavirus. ” HIV and COVID-19 are contracted in different ways and spread in the body in different ways, but the similarities in media coverage and in care and the impact on public health are undeniable.
“The fear of contagion, denial, and, again, the crucial importance of individual and collective behaviors. The mirror is there, call it HIV or COVID-19″ Says Andaló, while he confesses a wish for when science triumphs and the expected news has to be given: “That day, I hope to be near a computer”. Sooner or later we will have to look at each other without masks. Hopefully we like what we see.
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