Gareth Williams.........

[10ClarionSt]

....what's so special about this man that warrants the constant media coverage? Did he get HIV because of a medical blunder? If another "famous" person had contracted cancer due to smoking, or Cyrrhosis due to drinking, would they get the same coverage? I don't get it.

[haras2]

Gareth Thomas?

[Bobbisox1]

Gareth Thomas?
He’s came out to say he’s HIV positive to remover the stigma about the disease, and apparently to stop being ‘blackmailed’ from former lovers, I think he was very brave doing this but wonder why he didn’t have safe sex if he was having multiple partners and to be blackmailed from people he’d had sex with ( his words) he must have done, but he’s at least stopped them in their tracks thankfully, I wish him well

[fiction-factory]

Obviously the coverage has not been enough for you to remember his name.

>If another "famous" person had contracted cancer due to smoking, or Cyrrhosis due to drinking, would they get the same coverage

Remember George Best?

Anyway, I agree with Bobbisox. I don't think he wants sympathy. I think he wants others to avoid making the mistakes he's made and to stymie blackmail attempts

[Maydup]

He's done a brilliant job sharing his positive message and across all media channels. No one has missed it and the TV programme was insightful.

[ummmm]

He was being blackmailed and if I heard correctly his parents were informed without his knowledge.

[sunny-dave]

He was stitched up by a ghastly media scumbag rag who even told his parents before checking the story with him.

This has been a terrible week for any concept of morality/ethics in our wonderful 'free press' - the Ben Stokes story in "Your Soaraway Scum" was an even more egregious breach of any possible ethical code by immoral ratbags in search of a few sales, regardless of any cost to the target of the story.

[ummmm]

You can't find words to describe them.

[Ken4155]

While i do think he was brave to come out as gay, I believe his decision to make his condition public was more down to the blackmail than his concern for others.

[ummmm]

Or the fact he didn't want to worry his parents with the news.

[ToraToraTora]

not like 10cs to get details wrong is it? PMSL!

[Bobbisox1]

Does it really matter why he decided to speak out, in the grand scheme of things, @ Ken
He was very brave and to do this with the stigma attached to being HIV positive , it was a brave and courageous thing to do , well done him

[teacake44]

I'm going to be brave now, I'm ashamed to say I didn't get up until 9.15, and I'm still sitting her smelling as I've not had a shower yet.

[ummmm]

Wrong thread?

[andy-hughes]

I think this situation speaks to the media we have created as a society, where the concepts of 'public interest' and 'what interests the public' are interchangeable in a way that is unacceptable.

The media attention on Mr Thomas is generated by the reprehensible behaviour of a tabloid journalist in revealing Mr Thomas's HIV status to his parents, before he had a chance to tell them himself.

Now by any stretch of the imagination, the fact that a major gay sportsman has HIV can hardly still be the prurient shocking titillating news it would have been twenty years ago, so why does a tabloid still feel that this is actually 'news' that the public needs to know.

I believe the coverage is more about public support for Mr Thomas in having to reveal something entirely personal to the entire world, simply to avoid either being blackmailed, or exposed by the media - and that situation speaks volumes about us as a society, that these two situations can still prevent someone living a private life to which he is entitled.

I think the entire sordid business shames us all.

[andy-hughes]

Ken - // I believe his decision to make his condition public was more down to the blackmail than his concern for others. //

I don't think Mr Williams has to have any 'concern for others' - his personal health is a matter for him and his family, and no-one else.

[teacake44]

Its called gossip, AB thrives on it, (don't it)?

[Jordyboy9]

I am with 10clarionst,with this,
Gay man is hiv positive
He knew the risks
Unprotected sex
Where’s the story?

[ummmm]

It's not just gay men who are at risk. Women get it too.

[teacake44]

Play with fire, and all that.

[Ken4155]

Of course he "doesn't have to have any concerns for others" andy, and i don't believe he has. As i said, the reason he made the HIV public was because he was 'forced' to by the gutter-press. PR have dressed it up a tad, that's all. I'm not knocking the guy. As you say, his personal health is a matter for him and his family. Unfortunately that's not how sections of the press see it. Ditto the Sun's digging up a 31 year old story on Ben Stokes' family. We don't 'need' to know these things.