Take last week’s Special Victims Unit, which was summed up as follows by Click2Houston.com:
"A man is found murdered execution style in the window of his workplace, and above him the word Killer is written. A stamp on his hand leads Detectives Benson (Mariska Hargitay) and Fin (Ice-T) to a gay circuit club, also a methamphetamine hangout. Detectives Benson and Fin scan the ID's of the guests who were at the club and during the investigation, Fin discovers his estranged son Ken Randall (guest-star Ernest Wadell) was also there. As the case continues, Detective Fin confronts his son and Medical Examiner Warner (Tamara Tunie) confirms that the victim Robin Weller had the deadly and contagious new strain of AIDS which is becoming an epidemic. When Weller's boyfriend, who also carried the deadly strain of AIDS, is also found murdered, eyes turn toward Gabriel Thurman (guest-star Brian Bloom) an activist trying to stop the spread of the disease. The case goes to trial and Thompson's attorney Carolyn Maddox, (guest-star CCH Pounder) tries to sway the jury that her client's actions were justified."
Now, let’s fill in the blanks:
Robin Weller and his boyfriend Lydon Grant are both heavily into crystal meth, they are both promiscuous, they both practice unsafe sex, and they both have this "killer strain" of HIV, which is supposed to lead to AIDS and death within a year of seroconversion. Gabriel Thurman is a prominent member of the "Rainbow Army," an ACT-UP style group, whose younger brother Alex (also gay) contracted and died from the killer strain of HIV. Thurman is presented as the "radical activist" approach to the question, deciding to kill the men infected with this strain.
Let me repeat that: in this episode of Law & Order: SVU a prominent AIDS activist is portrayed supporting the execution of HIV+ individuals who do not practice safe sex!
Now please, take a few deep breaths and scour your brains, and ask yourselves: (1) What parts of this story are true, and what parts aren’t? (2) Do we have any “Rainbow Armies” and would we be better off if we did? (3) What politics does this story advance?
Truth or Fiction?
First things first: there is indeed some inconclusive evidence of a "new, more deadly strain" of HIV, and some health officials fear its spread (and the continuing spread of plain-old-vanilla-HIV) may be abetted by meth use. There were several reports in the media (for instance in the New York Blade, WebMDHealth and The San Francisco Chronicle) with, at times, different opinions of this back in February, after New York Public Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden issued a public alert. However, at this point it seems that there was more hysteria than wisdom in much of the initial hype, as detailed at Angry Indian
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