Adam Castillejo- The London Patient

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The Getting2U (G2U) crew get the chat with Adam Castillejo, also known as The London Patient. Adam was the second person in the world to be cured by HIV through receiving a bone-marrow transplant to combat against his Leukemia.

The team sets the tone for the episode with a brief talk about “safe spaces” and the need to use “people-first language” to battle the ever-going stigma attached to HIV, Viral Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Infections, Mental Health, and Substance Use Disorders. People-first language humanizes the condition that the person is going through and subconsciously reminds people that the individual dealing with the issue is a person, rather than the issue itself. A common example used quite often is “person with substance use disorder” versus “drug addict”. People-first language also looks at terminology and its stigmatizing effects on the people experiencing the situation, for instance referring to someone with a negative HIV or STI test result as “clean”. This statement automatically implies a positive test result would be “dirty” and results in external and internal stigma to the individual.
Once the stage was set, Adam jumped in and participated in an emotional, thought-provoking conversation with the Getting2U crew about his experiences being The London Patient, what his experiences were like being diagnosed with HIV, then cancer, and in the end being cured, and touched on what he’s learned and now believes need to be the next step in the fight against the HIV epidemic.
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