COMMENTARY: ‘We already lived through the plague years of HIV,’ says one Canadian long-term survivor. He doesn’t want to see the U.S. go through it again
Canadians and people with HIV seem to have one thing in common these days: They both feel targeted by Donald Trump and his administration. Canadian Bradford McIntyre is a long-term survivor of HIV. In a time when U.S. foreign aid—including U.S. global HIV programs—has been under assault, the HIV advocate recalls how individual Canadians crossed the border to give people in this country the HIV medications they needed but couldn’t afford.
From about 1987 through the 1990s, Canadians collected, sent and delivered unused HIV medications to the United States. We had accumulated these medications as a result of having developed drug resistance or changing medications, and from our friends, boyfriends and life partners who had died from complications of AIDS. We hid the HIV drugs in our luggage to avoid detection when crossing the border into the U.S. Many Americans who had HIV were without healthcare or access to medication. In contrast, here in Canada, my HIV medications are covered. HIV medications are provided to anyone with HIV.
Some Canadians are still sending HIV medications to the U.S. We already lived through the plague years of HIV; we shouldn’t have to go through it again because of Donald Trump and his policies.
I have lived with HIV for 41 years. I remember thinking, if I can live ten years, hopefully there will be medications that will save my life. Fortunately, I lived beyond those ten years thanks to triple combination therapy. For over 30 years, I have been an HIV/AIDS advocate, creating awareness and hoping that one day, no one will have to go through what I and others experienced in those early years with sickness, without medications.
I was told I had six months to live in 1985. It was the early years of the HIV epidemic when there were no treatments, no medications and like many people living with HIV, I suffered through opportunistic infections.
Dr. Julio Montaner, executive director and physician-in-chief at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS here in Vancouver, who pioneered the use of triple combination drugs, saved my life in 1998.
I was dying from pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP). I could not tolerate the medications to treat PCP, and Dr. Montaner prescribed triple combination therapy hoping it would reduce my viral load enough so that my immune system could rebound to fight off the pneumonia. It worked.
HIV medications continue to save my life! Over the last 25 years, I have volunteered in HIV clinical studies. Without these lifesaving medications, I would not be here today. They have allowed me to live a long and healthy life!
McIntyre with husband Deni, left
My husband, Deni Daviau, who is seronegative, and I celebrated 25 years together this past January. We are a serodifferent couple. With a strong immune system (my CD4 count is 1,490), I have maintained being undetectable since 1998. Being undetectable means that I am not able to transmit the virus to my partner, which is what the science of Undetectable = Untransmittable (also known as U=U) is about.
It saddens me that people today face going through some of the same things that we experienced 35–40 years ago. While people around the world have been fiercely fighting to stop HIV and working to provide medication and services to people with HIV, Trump is trying to destroy decades of progress in weeks.
This month I will turn 73. I have lived all these years when so many people with HIV had nowhere near that length of time. I don’t take being alive for granted and have dedicated my life to fight to stop HIV/AIDS. I don’t know how long I can continue but I hope I will see the end to Trump and the danger he is causing.
Canada—our leaders and Canadian citizens from coast to coast—is united in doing everything we can to support our neighbours to the south. We are rallying hard against what Trump is doing—not against Americans. We love our neighbours!
Bradford McIntyre is an HIV/AIDS advocate living with his husband Deni in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and has been living with HIV since 1984. He maintains his own website, PositivelyPositive.ca, providing HIV-related news and resources and raising awareness.