Abstract

This article explores the growth and impact of
the medicalisation of HIV and HIV-related
stigma. Since the early days of the virus when
treatments were unavailable, political voices for HIV
advocacy were powerful; public discourse reflected
these changes with growing public-health campaigns
that began to demystify HIV as a concept. However,
with the development of antiretroviral therapy (ART)
the voices powerfully associated with HIV have
largely moved away from the campaign and
advocacy groups, having switched to, and accruing
dominance from, the biomedical establishment
through the medicalisation of HIV. This has led to a
parallel system in which people today are living
longer with HIV treatment and their standards of living
are getting better; however, the once powerful process
of demystification and public discourses discussing
HIV and its stigma, have become much more muted.
HIV in the public realm has become largely ‘silenced’
outside the work of HIV organisations and biomedical
institutions and so has yet to develop into a ‘post-HIV’
stage of public understanding and acceptance. This
article uses the work of Ghaziani and applies his
three-stage model of community change, arguing that
HIV as a concept has not begun the final stage of
acceptance where HIV stigma is tackled through
public discourse because of the medicalisation process
itself.