Transcript

The advice that I would give to someone who is thinking about testing would be that you should do it.

Because... There’s—there’s two important reasons.

One, if you test and you test HIV negative then you know that you need to— to get onto some type of program to make sure that you stay HIV negative; and that’s either using condoms or having your partner checked out or you and your partner agree to go get tested before you start having any type of unprotected sex.

So that’s what I would say for you—for one reason for you to get tested.

And for the other reason you need to know your status because if you are, in fact, HIV positive then you need to get into some type of care to get evaluated to know where you are in terms of being HIV positive because the sooner you know the better off you’ll be because you can’t live with this illness.

So if I was trying to give advice to people who have never been tested that’s what I would say.

I would also say that until you get tested you don't know if you’re positive or negative.

So you can’t actually criticize other people because you don't know your status; and, you might, in fact, be positive. So the person that you’re talking about may be you.