Now 20 years after Pedro from The Real World San Fransico lost his life to AIDS, he is still a name held dearly to activists for both gay rights and HIV awareness. Pedro was on a simple reality show, but his openness about both being a gay man and living with AIDS put a lovable and relatable face to the disease and allowed the world to finally hear about the virus in terms they could relate to. I give a lot of credit to MTV for having him on the show. His unfiltered conversations with his housemates and other media about HIV taught us so much when we knew so little. Unfortunately he only lived to 22 years old. As much as his story saddens us, I think it encourages us to continue the fight to end HIV/AIDS. We should be supporting any and every drug that will decrease the amount of lives lost to this virus and hopefully get to a vaccine that is affordably available and eventually a cure. We owe it to Pedro and the many lives lost.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:05:12 +0000