Meet Josh
Josh is in his mid-20s, a college graduate student who was born with severe hemophilia, a recessive-gene trait associated with the X-chromosome that is found almost exclusively in males. Hemophilia, by definition is a disorder in which the blood fails to clot normally because of a deficiency or an abnormality of one of the clotting factors, in his case Factor Eight. While this disease has been around for a long time, the medical technology in the early 1980’s was nowhere as safe as it is today. When there was factual knowledge that most of the blood products were contaminated with strands of HIV, the government turned a blind eye to the situation. The factor manufacturers intentionally kept the medicine on the market because it was too expensive to transition it off the market and engineer it so the virus could be eradicated. By 1985 the government intervened by making the drug companies change the way that medicines were engineered. That intervention took place well after Josh, along with thousands of other hemophiliacs, contracted the HIV virus. Josh was the first grandson after a number of daughters and granddaughters were born into his family. He contracted HIV after sustaining a major brain hemorrhage at the age of one and a half years. It also resulted in severe neurological impairments, developmental handicaps and a host of challenges to overcome. All of these wrongs occurred and he was left with managing two diseases that he did not care for. Although Josh could not prevent contracting HIV, he nonetheless feels it is important to use his story in prevention education programs like Hope’s Voice. In his words, “I found a way to use my adversity as a way to teach others how to stay safe and how they can prevent contracting a disease I had no choice in avoiding. Life has been about taking the adversity in my life and making it a strength to live by. It’s been an arduous journey from the beginning, but I wouldn’t change it for anything because it has made me the person I am today.”
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