The seventh ministerial AIDS information campaign proudly displays the slogan: "Do you have any idea of the suffering?" Perhaps, in this way, it seeks to send a message of solidarity to those affected by the virus, coupled with communication strategies aimed at prevention.
A television commercial depicts a withering flower and the word AIDS dissolving into the acronym of the aforementioned slogan: "Do You Have Any Idea About Suffering?". The Festivalbar event is participating in the campaign with a dedicated space and by distributing informational materials and caps with the slogan "Stop AIDS.".
Once again, the only major absentee is the condom.
Do you have any idea of the suffering that a campaign like this inflicts on all of us—HIV-positive and HIV-negative workers—when we see that, once again, public funds are being used to portray HIV-positive people as being left with nothing but the pain and compassion of others?
Do you have any idea of the suffering of all those mothers who have contacted us, outraged and worried about their young HIV-positive son who must endure the 'image of the withering flower'?
Do you have any idea how painful it was to listen to Michelle Hunziker and Marco Maccarini, presenters of Festivalbar, trying to avoid using the word condom while simultaneously trying to make it understood?
Do you have any idea how painful it is to realize that those responsible for protecting public health lack the courage and, even more seriously, the will to publish and distribute preventive materials?
How many more years must pass, and how many new infections will there be, before we see, instead of a withering flower, a condom unrolling and finally hear a firm question that forcefully asks everyone: "Do you have any idea how safe it is?""
LILA publicly asks Minister Sirchia how it is possible, after twenty years of AIDS, that Italy still persists in producing information campaigns that do not place condoms at the center of their communication, unlike many other countries, if not all, of the European Community.