cinema_babe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cinema_babe) wrote2013-06-03 07:50 pm
cinema_babe) wrote2013-06-03 07:50 pm
Magic, Smoke, and Mirrors?
I'm watching a documentary about Magic Johnson's annoncement that he was HIV postitive.
It's an interesting piece that situates his vast importance in international pop culture at that time and the impact of his announcement.
It also reminds me of something someone told me a few years ago. A conspiracy theory that seems both very crazy and highly plausible.
I was working with a woman who was a PhD candidate in Public Health Administration. Her area of interest was how lower income, urban black communities deals with chronic illnesses like diabetes and HIV infection. Apparently among (at least) black social workers and others in the health policy field believe that Magic "took a bullet for the team". That he never had HIV, that he was approached by people who asked him to say he had HIV as a way of blasting through public attitudes.
They felt that by putting a wildly popular celebrity who was well loved and considered a role model in the role of someone who has been infected with the HIV virus, it would trigger dialogue among people who chose to believe it wasn't anything they had to think about. He was asked to play the role for blacks that Ryan White and the Ray Brothers did for the rest of America.
It seems like an incredible story but it's just incredible enough, and the rumor has been tenacious enough, that it just might be true.
The timeline between his infection and his wife's pregnancy is complicated. If he had been HIV+ for while, how did he not pass it to her. If he got it after she got pregnant, does that mean they stopped having sex immediately after conceiving. And yes, all of this is none of anyone's business but you see where I'm going here.
My big thing against conspiracies is that if more than 2 or 3 people know, it's going to come out. This has been proven again and again. However, I think this could have been put over with far fewer people than we might think. And just the fact that pockets of people in the healthcare community talk about a possible conspiracy says that maybe it has leaked out here and there.
Do I think we'll ever really know? Nope but it's an intriguing theory.
It's an interesting piece that situates his vast importance in international pop culture at that time and the impact of his announcement.
It also reminds me of something someone told me a few years ago. A conspiracy theory that seems both very crazy and highly plausible.
I was working with a woman who was a PhD candidate in Public Health Administration. Her area of interest was how lower income, urban black communities deals with chronic illnesses like diabetes and HIV infection. Apparently among (at least) black social workers and others in the health policy field believe that Magic "took a bullet for the team". That he never had HIV, that he was approached by people who asked him to say he had HIV as a way of blasting through public attitudes.
They felt that by putting a wildly popular celebrity who was well loved and considered a role model in the role of someone who has been infected with the HIV virus, it would trigger dialogue among people who chose to believe it wasn't anything they had to think about. He was asked to play the role for blacks that Ryan White and the Ray Brothers did for the rest of America.
It seems like an incredible story but it's just incredible enough, and the rumor has been tenacious enough, that it just might be true.
The timeline between his infection and his wife's pregnancy is complicated. If he had been HIV+ for while, how did he not pass it to her. If he got it after she got pregnant, does that mean they stopped having sex immediately after conceiving. And yes, all of this is none of anyone's business but you see where I'm going here.
My big thing against conspiracies is that if more than 2 or 3 people know, it's going to come out. This has been proven again and again. However, I think this could have been put over with far fewer people than we might think. And just the fact that pockets of people in the healthcare community talk about a possible conspiracy says that maybe it has leaked out here and there.
Do I think we'll ever really know? Nope but it's an intriguing theory.
no subject
Assuming of course that she doesn't have some sort of genetic anomaly that would give her some sort of super resistance. Apparently was interesting enough for some people to think twice.
There are plausible explanations for everything that I tend to believe but it is an interesting theory.
no subject
As an aside, it must be the case that infectivity is much higher at some points, and is known to be higher with co-occurring HSV-2, higher viral loads, etc. Otherwise HIV wouldn't be an epidemic at the level it is.
I'm not saying that one should feel secure that HIV transmission rates are low in latent stages of infection, just that depending on his infection it's very plausible that he could have had fairly regular sex with his new wife and she could have remained HIV negative.