Watch: HIV-Positive “John Lennon” Uses Anniversary To Fight AIDS

From our friends at New York City’s Housing Works, who, you’ll remember, last week brought us a bagel schmear campaign on NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, comes this video of John Lennon  look-alike Ray Brisson’s work to bring knowledge and understanding of the fight against HIV/AIDS and discrimination. Housing Works is a great NYC-based nonprofit that fights for the rights of low-income people living with HIV.

Via Housing Works:

“Here’s what Ray Brisson—the man wearing the green jacket—was thinking: He’s been HIV-positive for 31 years. He’s alive today only because of a joint federal-state program, the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, that helps HIV-positive low and mid-income people access medication. In the past year, thousands have been dropped from the program because states are slashing budgets. Last week, the wait list to get on ADAP hit a record 4,369 individuals.

“So, thought Brisson, why not use a resemblance to Lennon—a man who stood for compassion and justice—to drum up attention around the problem?

“If we start in New York, and then go down South, and then out West, we could do it, we could end these lists,” he said. “I’m telling you, if this problem isn’t solved, this is going to be horrific, people will die because they don’t have drugs, and it’s going to be one of the saddest things that America has experienced in 30 years.”

HIV-positive “John Lennon” Uses Anniversary to Fight AIDS from Housing Works on Vimeo.

Photo, video: Julie Turkewitz//Housing Works
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