ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A U.S. congressional candidate from Orlando says in a Facebook posting that he is HIV positive.
Bob Poe said in a video posted Thursday on his official Facebook page that he was diagnosed with HIV 18 years ago.
Poe is a former chair of the Florida Democratic Party and one of several candidates running for Florida’s 10th district congressional seat.
In the video Poe says he is “perfectly healthy.”
Poe says he felt compelled to go public about his HIV status after encountering a woman who was recently diagnosed with HIV.
She described the diagnosis as a death sentence.
Poe says it’s not, and that he wanted her to know she wasn’t alone.
He says he hopes his disclosure helps remove the fear and shame associated with an HIV diagnosis.
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Well, all power to him! Seriously, many people in the USA and Europe live very happy healthy and productive lives many many years after their diagnosis these days.
I can’t say the same for all countries in the world, but in the first world, the richest nations can take care of people with this illness. Thanks, mostly to science, which isn’t always coming up with instantaneous cures that are affordable for everyone in the world, but the alternative to science, pseudo-science, fake cures, faith in a deity, etc., that won’t help a patient with AIDS.
Even if he doesn’t win a seat in Congress, he’s doing a big service to Floridians and America by running openly as both a victim and survivor of this illness.
Well said! I hope this story goes viral (pardon the intended pun) and sweeps him into that seat.
I think it will be picked up all over. FIRST openly candid candidate for office talking about his illness as if it were something to continue live with (and it is!)
Seriously, I know 3 men with AIDS whom I have known since the 1980’s, or before. They are still healthy and happy older men, living out their lives with dignity and respect, just as I know 3 or 4 people with diabetes doing the same. At the beginning of the 1900’s, people with diabetes had only the hope of severely restricted diets to keep them alive, no insulin. In the 1980’s we had no effective “treatments” for AIDS, but now we do for people lucky enough to live where they can get treatment, (not yet an ideal worldwide solution, but a start).Both are illnesses, but they are part of the challenge we in the 21st century can face with courage and knowledge and understanding.
Be strong…
One can only admire such honesty.