The central issue for me today is vulnerability. Contamination happens where there is vulnerability. If we don't understand this vulnerability, we can't explain why, despite the prevention campaigns, despite the fact that most people know that you must use a condom or a clean needle if you take risks, the number of new infections has hardly dropped in the last 12 months. There were 4,796 new cases of HIV in 1996, only 300 less than in 1995. Homosexuals are vulnerable because it is hard, in France and elsewhere, to admit to being homosexual.
Drug users continue to get sick because they are seen as criminals, rather than people who suffer.
In Africa, women are more vulnerable to AIDS because they lack weight in society. If so many drug users are contaminated, it is surely because we have a juridical framework which defines drug use as crime and drug users as criminals. As a result, drug use can only be secret. Within this secret world, little attention is paid to public health messages from outside. For years now, Act Up has been arguing for the installation of automatic syringe distributors in the appropriate locations.