Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl! And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends.
It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Tomorrow is National HIV AIDS and Aging Awareness Day. Let's get started. With September being Sexual Health Month, it only makes sense that there is a day devoted to HIV and AIDS.
However, tomorrow is about more than just that. It's the National HIV AIDS and Aging Awareness Day. Well, you might say, well, why did they feel the need to throw the aging portion in there? Well, let's look at it.
Of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States, it's estimated that 24% of them are age 55 or older. OK, let's take it back. Let's do a little history lesson here. HIV came to the United States in 1960, somewhere around there.
But you didn't know a whole lot about it back then. There was no talk or whatever. 81 is when it becomes a thing. People's eyes are open and it's like, what in the world is happening to us now?
And from there, the doctors, they're doing more research, they're testing more drugs. And they create this medicinal cocktail, if you will, that allows people who've contracted HIV and AIDS to live longer. Well, now that they have medicine that can sustain them, then they live longer. They become old people.
And there you have it. The aging community that has either HIV or AIDS, is they're getting older. And that's awesome, right? Well, now, here's the other thing.
For the people who didn't make it, the ones that had families, now, their children are being raised by their grandparents, another tie-in to the aging community. Because these people may not have HIV or AIDS, but they may have had a child that had it. And that child had children, and now they're taking care of their children's children, because their children are no longer here. So it's this one big just cycle, but it's all relevant.
So one thing I want to say before I close out this little portion is that with aging, don't fool yourself. You're never too old to catch HIV or AIDS. You're never too old. Don't get it twisted.
Don't sleep because you can. There's no rule in the virus book that says, oh, I cannot attach myself to this person, because they're older. No, you've probably heard about it where nursing homes or hotbeds or STIs and things of such. And that's the reason, because there's no cut-off.
So we've got to continue to educate ourselves. We've got to educate our children. We've got to educate our friends, the entire community. Hence, the reason we have these national days of awareness.
So you might be wondering, well, how do I celebrate a day like this? What do I do? Well, let me tell you, there are a number of things that you can do. The fact that the members of the Congress and your state legislators need to hear about these issues that matter to you, you can reach out.
You can call them. You can write a letter, personalize email. You can join the officials newsletter list if they have one. You can schedule a meeting with them or just stop in.
And let them know about things like funding for prevention, care, treatment, biomedical research, housing, social services, things along those lines. There's education. Education is big. Find out what the curriculum is at the schools in your area, in your district.
And from there, talk to these legislators about education programs that positively impact HIV prevention and the care and treatment of people living with HIV and AIDS. There's policies that can be put in place for compassionate and sound scientific evidence-based platform, that sort of thing. There's so much that you can do. And it doesn't all have to happen tomorrow.
It's not all going to happen tomorrow. But you start thinking about it. You start making those plans. You start having those tough conversations with your friends and relatives and get the people together.
And that's where the change starts to happen. And for those of you that are sheltering in place and have no intentions of going anywhere or doing anything with anyone, what you can do is you can make a donation. And I would like to recommend that you make your donation to the AIDS Institute. It's a national nonprofit organization that promotes action for social change through public policy research, advocacy, and education.
You can check out their website at theaidsinstitute.org. That's T-H-E-A-I-D-S-I-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-E.org. You can also check them out on one of my favorite places to hang out. That would be Twitter at AIDSAdvocacy.
That's at A-I-D-S-A-D-V-O-C-A-C-Y. So check out their website. They've got a lot of things to share. Their research, capacity building, education, federal policy, global policy action.
And it appears that they are out of the state of Florida because they also specifically talk about Florida policy on their website as well. All right, well, that was today's episode. You know, quick and to the point. But you know, before I go, I want to say something.
And it's loosely tied to tomorrow's event for national HIV, AIDS, and aging awareness today. In a sense, it's talking about aging because I'm going to show my age right now. I happen to be looking on Twitter. And I saw that they were saying that Cheers, Jerry Harris, has been arrested for producing child pornography.
And I went into a panic. And I'm like, Jerry, Jerry on Cheers. And I went down the list. I'm like, Sam Malone, Carla, Cliff, Norm, Dr.
Fraser Crane, Woody, Rebecca, Phil, Diane, Lilith, Coach. I don't remember on Jerry. And then I realized they're not talking about the cast from Cheers. They're talking about a cheerleading show on Netflix.
And I was like, oh my gosh. I never heard of this Jerry dude. But then as I looked him up, it's like all of these celebrities are freaking out because they got to meet Jerry or talk to Jerry. And I'm thinking, wow.
So I am so far removed. So give me a shout out if I'm not alone in that one. Please tell me there's other people out here that I know I do who Jerry was. Like I said, I hope you enjoyed your episode of Tweechrend.
Have a great weekend. And I will see you on Tuesday.