r/interesting • u/VIVIDUFF • Aug 25 '26
HISTORY To fight HIV stigma in 1991, a doctor publicly kissed an HIV positive activist to challenge the belief that saliva could transmit the virus.
Cagliari, Italy, December 2, 1991. Immunologist Fernando Aiuti publicly kissed Rosaria Iardino, a 25-year-old woman living with HIV, on the mouth. At the time, people living with HIV faced widespread fear and discrimination, while misinformation about how HIV could be transmitted was widespread.
Aiuti and Iardino decided together to make the gesture after becoming frustrated with misinformation surrounding HIV and kissing. They wanted to show, in the most visible way possible, that HIV was not spread through ordinary kissing.
The photograph quickly became an international symbol in the fight against HIV/AIDS stigma. Aiuti died in 2019 at the age of 83. Iardino later described the kiss as the basis of one of Italy's most effective HIV awareness campaigns.
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u/UpstairsAd194 Aug 25 '26
first time i saw this photo.
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u/Wesslywev Aug 25 '26
What killed him?
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u/jvkk Aug 25 '26
tragically, he died in 2019 of an accidental fall while hospitalized for heart disease :c
we truly lost a legend that day.
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u/Status-Notice5616 Aug 25 '26
Fernando Aiuti (8 June 1935 – 9 January 2019) was an Italian immunologist and politician. He was the founder and first President of ANLAIDS
Probably should have picked a better acronym.
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u/jvkk Aug 25 '26
yeah, that's a, ah, choice, acronym XD
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u/davide494 Aug 25 '26
Honestly, for an Italian it's pretty straightforward, and even if I never heard of it before I can immediately understand its meaning: Associazione Nazionale Lotta all'AIDS (National Association Fight against AIDS) or something similar.
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u/lenor8 Aug 25 '26
Why? What does it sound to you?
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u/Personal-Wafer-7114 Aug 25 '26
Yeah, they really should have thought about English speaking redditors back in 1985
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u/Dry_Explanation_9573 Aug 25 '26
It’s an acronym if you say it like a word eg NASA, if you just say the letters it’s an initialism eg FBI. To be fair I don’t know Italian so it could in fact be an acronym. Just spreading the gospel of initialisms.
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u/Any_Asparagus8267 Aug 25 '26
For when your thirst can't be quenched, brought to you from the makers of gatoraid.
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u/F1ankNSpank Aug 25 '26
Hmm. It's interesting how that would fit perfectly on a license plate in my state...
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u/Cady-Jassar Aug 25 '26
Who would of thought that kissing an HIV patient could cause falling to death... live and learn...
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u/totallyordinaryyy Aug 25 '26
So kissing AIDS patients kills you... eventually.
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u/vitringur Aug 25 '26
Why is that tragic? He is already ripe in the photo and you are saying he died 30 years later from pretty typical natural causes.
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u/littleratofhorrors Aug 25 '26
All deaths are sad.
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u/Lilfrankieeinstein Aug 25 '26
Sad? Yes.
Tragic at 83?
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u/littleratofhorrors Aug 25 '26
It'll be a tragedy when you die too, my friend. :(
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u/Pleasant-Future5818 Aug 25 '26
The tragedy, I think, is the frivolity of the death. He might have made it to 93 if he hadn't taken a spill. As you age you might find ten years are not nothing
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u/jvkk Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
this guy gets it. it was a tragic accident that killed him. a death being tragic is not dictated solely by how long a person might have left to live, that's just a dumb, reductionist way to look at it. a mass murderer on death row getting executed is not tragic just because they were like 35 when they got fried and could have lived many more years, just as a very important figure in medical history dying of a fall in his 80's is tragic because he deserved to live and his cause of death was accidental. if you took your 80 year old grandmother to the hospital because she has heart issues and needs some stents put in or whatever, and then through their negligence she fell down the stairs and died, even though otherwise she'd be fine, you'd find that tragic, because it would be. it's wrongful death. just because she'll likely die in a decade of the heart disease were treating, doesn't mean that we don't treat it to extend her life, either.
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u/-Jiras Aug 25 '26
"natural causes" you mean the Aids he contracted with the kiss made the floor slippery 30 years later
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u/nxcrosis Aug 26 '26
Just like how the cigarettes my aunt used to smoke made the storm winds topple a tree and fall on her leg.
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u/Gabagooligan99 Aug 25 '26
So he died from a fall WHILE hospitalized ? That sounds like a hell of a lawsuit
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u/Independent-Bug-7938 Aug 26 '26
Ahaaa so he died after the kiss, is that what you're saying ? /s
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u/red_and_black_cat Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
He died in 2019, 84 years old, 20 years later falling from a staircase in the hospital he was treated for cardiopathy.
He was a prominent immunologist and wanted to send a clear message : " HIV is dengerous but infected people are not lepers and there are many things you can do with them without any risk".
In 1991 that was not so widely accepted.
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u/Away-Caterpillar9515 Aug 25 '26
Damn! how are you feeling now?
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u/KaleidoscopeDecent33 Aug 25 '26
Dead💀
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u/red_and_black_cat Aug 25 '26
Much better thanks. I was born again 4 years ago and I am a cute little girl, with wonderful curly hair and one big goal : be the Mata Hari of this century.
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u/meldiane81 Aug 25 '26
Is there an end to your post? First time you saw this video... what? Or do you mean this is the first time you've seen this picture?
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u/UpstairsAd194 Aug 25 '26
It is supposed to be well known . I never saw the photo at all at the time. .
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u/YOLOfan46 Aug 25 '26
Trust me babe it was for science!
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u/jefesignups Aug 25 '26
"We should also show the world that grabbing your breasts is safe"
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u/_WoollyMammoth_ Aug 25 '26
What about sex with condoms, doctor?
Well, now that you mention it... <unzips>
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u/YOLOfan46 Aug 25 '26
the sacrifices a man must do for humanity and medicine!! sheesh what an underappreciated group of hard workers we are!
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u/TesticleMeElmo Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
“I’m going to kiss an AIDS patient to show that it’s perfectly safe! …Ew, not you, Hannah… I meant Katie! Katie specifically!”
“Doctor, I don’t know if my husba-“
“Come on, Katie, put some lipstick on! We’re going to be on the news!”
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u/PM_ME_ANYTHING_DAMN Aug 25 '26
Doctor was Italian and did this with all his patients
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick Aug 25 '26
That doctor is Italian, his name was Fernando Aiuti and he was the most prominent communicator in Italy during the first phases of the AIDS epidemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Aiuti He died at 83 falling down the stairs of the hospital he worked. Rumors of suicide. As a young medical student I did not like his stance of ‘only abstinence can prevent AIDS’ which I felt was unrealistic but remember that at the onset we clearly did not have the knowledge and medicines we have nowadays.
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u/NestorMakhno666 Aug 25 '26
I'll add that his son Alessandro is one of the best scientist and clinicians regarding rare diseases and gene therapies, He and Naldini altered the structure of HIV, disabling its harmfulness, to carry healthy genes into the cells of children suffering from severe genetic diseases and immunodeficiencies. Now there are two approved therapies that use the HIV virus as a vector, quite an amazing story.
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u/x_wbmr_x Aug 25 '26
These are the people we need to talk about more and errect statues for...
Not the Trumps, Putins, Netanjahus of the world...
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u/DogFatherTO Aug 25 '26
I totally agree - but by proceeding to mention those other names in your comment you kind of undercut your message… 😅
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u/Fair-Tangerine-9472 Aug 25 '26
I feel like at 83 falling down the stairs is generally an accident but I don't know the full story
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick Aug 25 '26
Sadly sometimes elderly people when believing their condition has no hope commit suicide. We do not allow voluntary euthanasia in our country. I hope this will change in the future making this a well regulated alternative subtracting this from a religious/ethical dispute.
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u/elizabeth-dev Aug 25 '26
but if that really was his intention he surely wouldn't have done it in an hospital
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u/BackgroundSummer5171 Aug 25 '26
My President did not push his wife down the stairs, then kill her then, bury her on a golf course!
Oh, old dude falling, yeah it's possible. So is murder, I would say there are lots of "accidents" that happen. Pretty easy to write them off.
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u/fdsfdsfds666 Aug 25 '26
I can totally see him saying that in a time when there wasn't medicine developed yet so people wouldn't judge others with HIV because it could happen to anyone, not that he really expects people to become abstinent.
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u/Orisi Aug 25 '26
I mean even today it's true for all forms of STI. The only real way to ensure you don't get an STI is a lack of sexual contact. The only other way you're getting HIV or another STI is through sharing needles/needle stick injury or a blood transfusion.
Yes condoms help. Yes there are medications that can prevent the infection setting in. But the latter doesn't actually prevent initial infection and the former is only mostly successful, it's not 100%.
We should be able to have honest conversations about these things without swinging to extremes.
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u/B_Indigo Aug 26 '26
Fernando Aiuti? You're telling me he's called "Dr Helps" in italian? Or, in other words, "Dr Aids"?
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u/Feisty_System_4751 Aug 25 '26
The fact an italian would suggest a kiss to prove that point made me giggle. Clever bastards.
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u/Lastsynphony Aug 27 '26
I think that at times is underestimated the amount of stigma that AIDS had, Princess Diana also took photos with patients with AIDS by touching them to making awareness, they thought that holding a hand of a patient of AIDS, a kiss on a cheek or on lips, or eating or drinking from the same glass could infect you, this doctor was amazing.
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick Aug 27 '26
Absolutely true. Being a medical trainee I vividly remember our confusion and need to separate prejudices from facts to better help people.
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u/Ynneb82 Aug 25 '26
Im Italy the aids scare was crazy. I still remember my mom telling me when I was little to not go near car accidents because maybe some blood can go inside my eyes and give me aids.
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Aug 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SES_LeviathanOfDusk Aug 25 '26
Seems you've never been to Rome or Naples, they don't drive really well there.
/jk (kinda)
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u/RebelRey Aug 25 '26
I was forced to discard my inherited earrings in case they gave me aids... My great grandmother did not have aids
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u/wufiavelli Aug 25 '26
Rosaria Iardino is still alive at least according to wiki. Just show how far medicine has come.
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u/izzitty Aug 25 '26
Her HIV is now Undetectable and Untransmittable (U=U): Thanks to lifelong combination antiretroviral therapy (ART), lardino lives with an undetectable viral load. This means the virus is suppressed to such low levels in her body that it cannot damage her immune system, and she cannot transmit the virus to others.
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u/Dramatic_Respond7323 Aug 25 '26
As no comment talked about the lady, Rosaria Iardino continue to live this day, thanks to revolutionary HIV treatment modern medicine has bestowed us. Science absolutely works.
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Aug 25 '26
It's a good thing that she did not have any gum disease
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u/TactlessTortoise Aug 25 '26
Honest question but wouldn't both need to? Or is blood contact enough?
I thought it was blood to blood/small wound to transmit, so it'd take both?
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u/PaxonGoat Aug 25 '26
Yes. HIV is a very weak virus that does not survive in saliva.
The would both need to be actively bleeding from the mouth.
And the HIV positive person would have to have received no treatment and have a high viral load.
These days we have treatment that makes transmission basically impossible.
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u/TactlessTortoise Aug 25 '26
Oh, I see. That's top notch then, thanks. Glad we've gotten so far already with helping many afflicted people. Even though treatment must still have some side effects and costs, it's not a hopeless death sentence like it was at first. Hopefully with recent advancements in gene therapies and new vaccine architecture researchers can find a way to go the final percent in the viral purge and get a cure going. It'd be awesome.
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u/PaxonGoat Aug 25 '26
Yes we actually have treatment now that an HIV positive woman could have a baby with a man and neither the baby or the man develop an HIV infection.
Sadly the US government is trying to cut funding to HIV prevention and treatment programs.
We have successfully cured HIV in a handful of people.
The vaccine is in development. The problem is that it's not giving long lasting immunity. I believe the current trials are still showing only around a year of protection.
We have a shot right now on the market that provides 3 months of protection.
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u/GodOfDarkLaughter Aug 25 '26
There's even a pill you can take if you're in a population that's more likely to be exposed to HIV (say a gay man who likes cruising), that will make it much less likely to contract the virus even if the person they have sex with is infected. Of course they recommend ALWAYS using protection in those scenarios, but even that isn't 100%. There are all kinds of medications and treatments available, thank God.
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u/PaxonGoat Aug 25 '26
Actually anyone who is is having a non monogamous sex life should consider PreP.
PreP is either a once a day pill or a shot every 3 months. It is around 99% effective at preventing HIV transmission.
Sadly condoms fail or there are terrible people out there that do "stealthing" which is removing the condom without consent.
If you're someone who is sleeping with someone who also is sleeping with other people, no matter the gender or sexuality, consider PreP.
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u/GodOfDarkLaughter Aug 25 '26
Ah yeah. I just remember when it first came out my buddy worked for a gay advocacy group and he got a ton of the people he worked with on it, as those were the groups targeted when it was initially released Times have changed, thankfully.
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u/Defiant_Lawyer_5235 Aug 25 '26
Or cracked lips
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u/Plane_Ad_1177 Aug 25 '26
Jesus Christ have people's understanding of this disease not moved on in forty years? You can't get hiv from cracked lips or gum disease.
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u/Environmental_Tap_15 Aug 25 '26
Funny how this post still applies to people's misunderstanding of the disease today. While theoretically possible, there has never been a single case of transmission via kissing; it's basically impossible. Even with high-risk activities like anal sex, transmission is rare- about 1 in 400 if you're receiving.
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u/rainbowbhuttmonkey Aug 25 '26
It’s entirely possible if someone has bleeding gums or open sores in their mouth. It’s very unlikely.
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u/Gawlf85 Aug 25 '26
Not "someone". Both persons kissing need to have open wounds in the mouth. It's very unlikely.
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u/VP007clips Aug 25 '26
It's unlikely, but the consequences are extremely severe.
I could probably manage to run across a highway and survive 99 times out of 100. But I wouldn't, because the severity of that 1 time where I don't make it is severe enough to not risk it.
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u/Gawlf85 Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26
That's still not an apt comparison.
There are zero recorded cases of transmission by kiss.
The chances of transmission in unprotected oral sex is like 4 of each 10,000 cases. Already way lower than your 1 out of 100 highway crossings.
The chances of transmission via mouth to mouth kissing is estimated theoretically to be a lot lower than any of that. So low, that it's never happened in all recorded medical history of the pandemic. Hence why it's a theoretical estimate, to the point it's generally considered to have a 0% chance.
And not only that: being hit by a car on the highway is very much lethal. Whereas HIV can be treated and patients can live a very normal and long life.
If the HIV positive kisser is under treatment, the chances of transmission drop to a virtual zero too, anyway.
So, you're comparing a dumb thing that can EASILY lead to your death in a split second, with a virtually inexistent chance of being transmitted a disease that isn't even lethal nowadays.
Are you up to date with your bacterial meningitis shots? Because unvaccinated people can easily die in hours for kissing a person carrying certain bacteria in their mouth, and this is waaaaaaaaaaay more likely than HIV transmission via kissing.
You probably have a higher chance of being struck by lightning and dying if you walk out your house tomorrow, than getting HIV from a kiss by an HIV positive person... So if you're going to let the risk of HIV model your conduct, you might as well stay indoors for the rest of your life 🤷
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u/TheWartMan Aug 25 '26
Its so unlikely that despite it being "technically possible" it would require such ridiculous odds that it isnt even worth mentioning unless youre trying to make some kind of point.
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u/rainbowbhuttmonkey Aug 25 '26
I would hate to break it to you, as someone who works in the medical field, it is absolutely worth mentioning. Is the CDC trying to make “some kind of point”?
“Deep, open-mouth kissing
Very rarely, transmission has occurred if both partners had sores or bleeding gums. You cannot transmit HIV through closed-mouth kissing. You cannot transmit HIV through saliva alone.”18
u/TheWartMan Aug 25 '26
I work in healthcare, dentistry specifically.
In order to transmit HIV through kissing, both parties would need to have severe gum disease, have both just got done absolutely fucking their mouth up with floss, then immediately start making out while bleeding.
Gingival tissue is extremely resilient and bleeding stops very quickly unless the individual has a clotting disorder.
Just another instance of the broader medical field having absolutely 0 clue about anything oral/dental health related because yall get like 1 week of education centered on it and pretend you know what youre on about.
Yes, you could technically transmit HIV that way, but i could technically walk into an active gymnastic competition and win the gold medal despite having no prior experience, as long as the other gymnasts all happen to injur themselves simultaneously. The statistics are so low, and the circumstances would be so off the wall that it is basically not worth mentioning. Youre being pedantic for no reason.
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u/Plane_Ad_1177 Aug 25 '26
Saliva doesn't transmit hiv, only blood or sexual fluids. So only if both people have bleeding open wounds in their mouth in which case they're not exactly going to be kissing...
Kissing does not spread HIV. Full stop.
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u/cooolcooolio Aug 25 '26
You still couldn't infect someone with HIV that way, if that was the happen both persons needed severe bleeding on their lips and that may be a little weird for most people
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u/soteria56 Aug 25 '26
You do know they both would have to have it for it to be transmitted
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u/Immediate_Space7 Aug 25 '26
Seeing he was a doctor and pretty invested in the matter, I assume he made sure to check that beforehand.
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u/Own_Watercress_8104 Aug 25 '26
Or being a doctor he would have known that is not how you get infected.
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u/anotherarchaeopteryx Aug 25 '26
Okay i learnt something today.
I was of the opinion that the exchange of any bodily fluid could transmit HIV. Apparently, it's a select few bodily fluids: Blood, Semen and pre-seminal fluid, Rectal fluids, Vaginal fluids, Breast milk
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u/Wide_Philosophy_8109 Aug 25 '26
It's associated with gay bros because it's mostly only spread by going up the butt. Spit and lady juices CAN spread it, but they won't very often.
If going up the butt was the norm for straight couples, HIV might have been like a mega Covid.
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Aug 25 '26
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u/JimTheJerseyGuy Aug 25 '26
Yes but, having lived through that era, the misinformation about HIV at the time was wild. When Princess Diana merely shook hands with HIV patients a few years earlier it was considered an incredible act. Aiuti and Iardino's gesture was along the same lines. Anything to dispel the rumors and misinformation that made anyone with HIV a pariah.
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u/ktbug1987 Aug 25 '26
Some doctors and nurses literally wouldn’t care for patients. People died alone and isolated. In the queer community, lesbians mobilized to bathe and care for HIV patients who were gay men, because nurses would not bathe them or give them compassionate care.
This is why the acronym starts with L (LGBTQ) in the English language.
I realize this was a long time ago to many alive today, but we can’t forget this history.
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u/RaisedByBooksNTV Aug 25 '26
Oh. I had no idea. It used to be GLBT and I was taught it was because of how the groups came together over time. I thought it changed to lgbt b/c it sounded better. Thanks!
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u/fightmydemonswithme Aug 26 '26
My uncle got it from a bad dentist. He was treated pretty poorly by others when I was younger, but he lived with us at one point and everything worked out fine. He just kept his toothbrush in his room since his gums bled sometimes. He had special wipes for if he bled. We were taught typical blood safety. Thankfully, he was happy to teach us things.
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u/TheWartMan Aug 25 '26
You are misinformed. HIV will not transmit from gum disease unless you just got done ravaging your mouth with floss whilst having active severe gum disease, then immediately while still ACTIVELY bleeding start making out with someone who also happens to have open wounds in their mouth, or a severely deficient immune system. Im a dental hygienist, we learn about this in school specifically because of the misconception.
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u/CitoyenRobespierre Aug 25 '26
I can't believe that outdated take got almost a a 100 up votes, especially nowadays with the medications we have further reducing infectivity...
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u/TheWartMan Aug 25 '26
I spend all day trying to convince grown adults to spend 5 minutes brushing and flossing a day and im resoundingly met with most of them not giving a fuck while their bone and gums wither away.
All that to say, im wholly unsurprised by the general publics lack of understanding of the human body/health. Even when you try to teach them using their own bleeding mouth as an example, they simply do not care.
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u/Brave_Explorer5988 Aug 25 '26
Whilst high level that sounds plausible, it's not. would require the mouth to be dry of saliva and have only blood, and have a lot not just a bit.
HIV is a pretty stubborn virus and it's not that easy to transmit. Yes there are some "easier ways" which are also the common ones (sex, needles, but even these ones might not happen from the first encounter) but otherwise it has a low resistance and it's getting killed by a lot of stuff. It also doesn't survive out on surfaces too long. It requires to survive the environment enough to start replicating and then survive the imune mechanism. Hepatitis viruses on the other hand are very resistant and much much easier to catch, hide longer from the imune system.
So the chances are very very very low. Virtually non existent. whilst chances to catch hepatitis are much higher
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u/iamthe0ther0ne Aug 25 '26
For much of the 80s we thought it might be transmitted by saliva. I remember in middle school people were afraid to share drinks or food. People born later have no idea how terrifying HIV was for the first two decades, when we didn't know much about it and there weren't any treatments. It meant a guaranteed horrible death and (usually) rejection by both family and society because of the stigma.
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u/TimeShiftedJosephus Aug 25 '26
Exactly, after seeing how people reacted to COVID, I don't begrudge people being overly cautious when HIV was public knowledge.
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u/NoPseudo79 Aug 25 '26
Risk 0 doesn't exist, but here chances aren't "quite low", they are very very very low, and stupidly negligible
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u/GuyBitchie Aug 25 '26
Yea touching doesn't transmit HIV , but when you touch someone with open bleeding hands into a open bleeding wound of a HIV infected person, that's a risk. What kind of stupid take ist that.
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u/PaxonGoat Aug 25 '26
Also the person with HIV would have to be completed untreated.
These days we have HIV treatment that brings the viral load down to undetectable levels which makes them non transmittable
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u/CitoyenRobespierre Aug 25 '26
Quite low being astronomically low, and you'd probably be grossed out by gums damaged enough to start posing a "risk" especially with modern meds. This sorry sort of take is how we get antivaxxers.
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u/Overall-Yellow-2938 Aug 25 '26
Chances a metroid kills you on its way down are never 0 but low enough that you should not worry about it. You should be way way more worried about a random stroke but its healtier not to think about the possibility all the time.
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u/Chambahz Aug 25 '26
Not true! The odds of being killed by a Metroid are literally zero. A meteor though…
-Nintendo fan8
u/Comfortable-Bison932 Aug 25 '26
The chances of getting killed by Metroid is also technically not 0. Some guy could beat you to death with a super Metroid cartridge
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u/Overall-Yellow-2938 Aug 25 '26
Was thinking about correcting myself but... Because of gems like this it stays as it is.
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u/gmishaolem Aug 25 '26
This reminds me about Crime Scene Cleaner where somebody got killed by a dinosaur statue in a museum, and your character quips that the chance of being killed by a dinosaur is never actually zero.
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u/coddiwomplecactus Aug 25 '26
Princess Diana got huge publicity for shaking the hands of HIV positive patients to show the same thing. May we never forget the horrors of this disease and what the govt did to fail our communities.
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u/Nounoon Aug 25 '26
Never had any Princess deserved the title of Princess more than her. It’s a shame this title cost her her life.
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u/ReadySetSantiaGO Aug 25 '26
I mean, as long as neither of them had open mouth sores, gingivitis, or periodontal disease, sure
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u/Comfortable-Bison932 Aug 25 '26
I mean yeah. It’s also not transmitted from handshakes but if they both have gaping wounds in their palms they can get infected.
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u/UncleSput Aug 25 '26
I mean, yeah it’s not like you’ll get it from hugging somebody unless you’re both shirtless with open chest wounds
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u/Grouchy_Exit_3058 Aug 25 '26
I mean, you can't get it from waving to someone across the street, unless a car bomb blows them up and launches their sinew into your mouth.
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u/Esarus Aug 25 '26
I mean yeah, it's also not transmitted from walking past someone, but if their arm has been cut off and they're spraying blood everywhere they can get infected
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u/Groundbreaking_Exit4 Aug 25 '26
my gums bleed coz my teeth are fucked up a bit
so yeah, props to dude that he was that much sure about his or the activist's dental health
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u/Elessar64 Aug 25 '26
Here in France we have a very popular moment of television. During a tv show (Sidaction) destined to raise money for research and inform the public about aids, a French actress (Clémentine Célarié) kissed a hiv positive man, for the exact same reason. I was 13 at the time, and from that day on, I never forgot that you can't get aids from a kiss (even a VERY French one).
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u/Extreme_Turnip_1921 Aug 25 '26
hiv people are immunocompromised, if their cd4 count is not good then they are the host for many oppurtunistic infections like tb and tb spreads, my uncle worked in an ngo of hiv patients he got tb . When he used tb drugs he suffered from many side effects
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u/TeaVisible5900 Aug 25 '26
Sure, but how can u know there is no blood in saliva? (cut in the mouth, gums bleed, nose bleed, lung bleed)
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u/throw7661 Aug 26 '26
But uhhh .... You can get HIV from kissing. It's extremely rare but the probability of transmission is greater than zero.
Government epidemiologists have identified for the first time a case in which the AIDS virus was probably transmitted through kissing.
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u/a_literal_idiot_616 Aug 25 '26
beh che dire, ha certamente AIUTato
(im so funny please laugh)
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u/olddoglearnsnewtrick Aug 25 '26
Beh almeno hai riconosciuto di chi si parla. Bravo ( e forse vecchiotto come me).
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u/EgyComanda82 Aug 25 '26
Wait! I thought hiv transmitted by body fluids!
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u/happy-to-see-me Aug 25 '26
Yes but not all of them, it can be transmitted by blood, sexual fluids and breast milk
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u/TraditionalPark2774 Aug 25 '26
If the woman was pretty, that was a win for him. :)
But seriously, I think he may have done the public a great service by demystifying this. Kudos to him and the woman who agreed to do this in public.
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u/StaticSystemShock Aug 25 '26
What exactly makes HIV virus only remain in bloodstream and not propagate through other external glands?
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u/break_from_work Aug 25 '26
Pretty brave, then again he was armed with knowledge. Also amazing how far we've come with treatments.
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u/XROOR Aug 25 '26
Brainwashing primary school kids to hold and wave, really horrible picket signs outside Ryan White’s house was heartbreaking
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u/DanKoloff Aug 25 '26
What is more interesting is that Rosaria Iardino is lesbian and is still alive married to another woman. Here:
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u/Travelerman310 Aug 25 '26
This is wild to me as a child of the 80s. I grew up with very religiously conservative parents. Yet even in the late 1980s I distinctly recall being allowed to check out a book from my school library and distinctly remember reading that HIV can't be transmitted through toilet seats.
I was probably 9. This wasn't hard stuff to understand.
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u/pantsuline Aug 25 '26
why are people making nasty jokes 😕 this took a lot of courage from both of them, its not some dumb excuse for him to steal a kiss for his own gratification. its a coordinated public stunt to make an extremely important point and it worked
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u/blazze_eternal Aug 25 '26
I remember as a kid the controversy with Magic Johnson continuing to play basketball after it came out he was positive. There was so much unknown at that time news, players, and coaches discussing possible transmission through sweat. Doctors pretty much had to do a press tour reassuring everyone how that's impossible.
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u/Good_Background_243 Aug 25 '26
What an absolute legend Fernando was. With one kiss, it's no exaggeration to say he probably saved thousands of lives.
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u/jag176 Aug 25 '26
Crazy he did that, and then joined Italy's right wing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Aiuti
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u/TechnicianUpstairs53 Aug 25 '26
That's true but tons of people have gingivitis so you never know if blood is in their mouth, lol
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u/Lyceus_ Aug 25 '26
The AIDS stigma was huge back then. People like him were what the world needed.
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u/Jesus_COD Aug 25 '26
Then there was an urge to prove that sex with condom also doesn't transmit HIV
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