Melissa Block speaks with Jim Bunn, president of Global Health Communications and one of the co-founders of World AIDS Day, about helping to create one of the longest running public health campaigns.



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World AIDS Day
Nepal
Berlin
Romania
San Francisco
HIV
James Bunn
Geneva
Global Program
World Health Organization
Thomas Netter
Social Security
And World AIDS Day was commemorated by people around the globe. In Nepal, they lit oil lamps. They released balloons in Berlin. And in Romania, medical students danced during a flash mob event. In San Francisco, a haunting sculpture went on view made entirely of syringes, a reference to the transmission of HIV through intravenous drug use. World AIDS Day began in 1988. Back then, James Bunn was a public information officer in Geneva at the Global Program on AIDS, part of the World Health Organization. He and his colleague, Thomas Netter, came up with the idea. Bunn took us back to that time 23 years ago and how people with HIV were viewed. The stigma that surrounded AIDS was actually twofold. One of it was what you could easily argue had to do with homophobia. But also there was a stigma of fear. There was a lot that people felt they did not know about the epidemic and they were afraid. And they were right to be afraid because of the things that they were hearing. So, I think the stigma that surrounded it made it something that people didn't want to talk about. If it came into their lives, it was something that they didn't know what to say if it came into their lives. And there were also, for people who were affected by it, they did not want to bring up whatever it was that their experience was with it because in those days, people were being fired from their job. They were being denied Social Security benefits. They were being ostracized by their families. They were being evicted from their homes because they were sick and dying.