We agree to meet outside Pret A Manger on Southampton Row, central London. Waiting in the distance, through the grimy sunlight and the clatter of lawyers, City workers and literary types \u2013 all macchiatos and adrenaline \u2013 stands a frail-looking figure, bent over and clutching a walking stick. As I approach he smiles. His name is Hugh, he is HIV positive and he is 35 years old.<\/p>\n
What follows is a story we never hear. It is a tale of seizures and brain cancers, of mental illness short-circuiting anti-HIV medication. It is a story, far from unique, that has been sunk, weights tied to the ankles. Meanwhile, on the surface ripples just one notion: that today in the UK \u2013 perhaps the best place in the world to be living with human immunodeficiency virus \u2013 HIV is nothing more than a chronic, entirely manageable condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all fine now \u2013 you just take a pill!\u201d says Chris Sandford, mocking the chorus of voices desperate to convey only the positive about being positive. \u201cI\u2019ve had an MP, a Lord and a GP say this to me in the last month,\u201d adds Chris, who is a patient representative at a London HIV clinic.<\/p>\n
In April 2014 the HIV-is-fine-now rhetoric reached its mainstream zenith when Dr Max Pemberton, a psychiatrist and columnist, wrote an\u00a0article in the\u00a0<\/a>Spectator<\/em><\/a>\u00a0entitled \u2018As a doctor, I\u2019d rather have HIV than diabetes\u2019 \u2013 his rationale being that \u201cfor those with HIV, providing they take their medication, there are very few problems\u201d. The story was quoted in Parliament the following month and picked up by media outlets internationally. It topped off several years of headlines in which \u2018cures\u2019 were mooted \u2013 even predicted to arrive \u201cwithin months\u201d \u2013 and in which \u201cnormal life expectancy\u201d was the resounding message.<\/p>\nReference:<\/h4>\n
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