HIV/AIDS Testing Quotes

Peter Jennings came to us and said to make a PSA, 'Let's Talk About AIDS.' But I was naive about how the virus is contracted - until Magic Johnson came out. I'd stereotyped it, thinking it was a gay disease, a white man's disease.

I'm over there filming in South Africa now, and two in five are HIV-positive now. Not many people know that.

I lost relatives to AIDS. A couple of my closest cousins, favorite cousins. I lost friends to AIDS, high school friends who never even made it to their 21st birthdays in the '80s. When it's that close to you, you can't - you know, you can't really deny it, and you can't run from it.

We must have safe places where people can discuss and be treated. Forty-four million people are already dead from AIDS. What logic is there in not discussing the word?

AIDS is such a scary thing and it's also the kind of thing that you think won't happen to you. It can happen to you and it's deadly serious.

I don't get the regular AIDS test anymore. I get the roundabout AIDS test. I ask my friend Brian, "Do you know anybody who has AIDS?". He says, "No". I say, "Cool, because you know me."

When I first found out I had HIV, I had to find somebody who was living with it, who could help me understand my journey and what I was going to have to deal with day-to-day. I found out that a person named Elizabeth Frazier was living with AIDS at the time, and so I called her up, and she took a meeting with me.

When I started out, no one would talk to young people about HIV or AIDS. I looked around and radio looked like a powerful way to shape culture in a healthy way.

I want to be incredibly clear: The United States stands for a public health approach to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Although it may seem callous to say so, millions of Americans are lucky that Magic Johnson was infected with H.I.V. There is no way of calculating how many lives he has saved. No advertising agency could have invented a better, or more effective, role model.

I think AIDS can be won. I think we can win this fight. It is winnable. But it means behavior change.

The greatest grand challenge for any scientist is discovering how to prevent the spread of HIV and finding the cure or an effective vaccine for AIDS.

You will never catch up with the spread of AIDS no matter how much money, no matter how many antiretrovirals are put into the system, unless you stop its growth. And the only way to stop its growth is prevention.

The important thing is this Just because I'm doing well doesn't mean that they're going to do well if they get HIV. A lot of people have died since I have announced. This disease is not going anywhere.

The challenges surrounding HIV and AIDS are getting more complex and mature, and we just can't stick our heads in the sand and say 'it can't happen to me.'

I found out through the Internet that I have AIDS. I learned that I was dead. Where else would I find these things?

I think we all realize that anyone can - and has - gotten AIDS. So there's obviously still a lot to be done.

A lot has changed since the 1980s, when the United States was a country with one of the greatest numbers of people infected with HIV.

We have miles to go to end AIDS in the Philippines and we need to equip young people with the right information and enable them to access services that are safe and responsive to their needs.

I just feel I've got thousands and thousands of young fans that have to learn about what's real when it comes to AIDS.