WATCH ABOVE: German men’s magazine, The Vangardist, printed an edition of its magazine with ink containing HIV-positive blood. Watch the making of the magazine and the message they want to send.
A German men’s magazine is asking its readers to combat the social stigma of HIV by literally holding it in their hands; the latest issue is printed with the blood of HIV-positive people.
The blood was taken from three HIV-positive patients, a 47-year-old mother, a 32-year-old straight man, and a 26-year-old gay man, and mixed with printing press ink to create the pale red colouring that adorns the cover of the Vangardist magazine and each one of its pages.
The issue is part of the #HIVheroes social media campaign. Its cover reads: “This magazine has been printed with the blood of HIV + people.”
“The greatest fear of a patient when getting an HIV-positive result is the reaction of their friends and family,” Dr. Therese Kosak, of the Vienna laboratory said in a video produced by the magazine. “The majority of society is not well-informed about HIV.”
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The issue attempts to tackle stigma by forcing people to come into physical contact with the symbolic representation of the disease. The issue comes wrapped in a plastic seal, forcing people to “break the seal to break the stigma,” Vangardist co-publisher Julian Wiehl told The Washington Post.
Though some people may be hesitant to touch the magazine, the disease cannot be spread via the blood-infused ink, mainly because the disease dies quickly when outside of the body. And HIV can only be transmitted via direct contact with bodily fluid like blood and semen.
Despite that, the magazine took extra efforts to ensure the blood’s safety and sterilized it before mixing it with the ink.
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Three thousand copies of the magazine go on sale May 7 but can only be sold in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. An additional 15,000 copies of the magazine, without the blood-infusion, have also been printed.
AIDS and HIV were first detected over 30 years ago and according to Health Canada, continue to infect thousands of people in Canada each year. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) weakens the body’s immune system making it more susceptible to normally harmless bacteria or parasites, fungi and cancers, according to Health Canada.
The agency addresses the stigma mentioned by Vangardist with a section of its website, which explains how the disease can’t be spread including shaking hands or hugging, coughing or sneezing, using swimming pools or toilet seats used by an infected person, sharing eating utensils, and insect or animal bites.
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