Boston Ryan White Council Debuts HIV Anti-Stigma Film at Public Campaign Launch

BOSTON — July 22, 2026 — Boston's Ryan White Planning Council launches anti-HIV stigma campaign with documentary film debut. The Consumer Committee of the Ryan White Planning Council, which oversees allocation of Boston's $15 million annual federal Ryan White Part A grant, held a public premiere Tuesday of its documentary film "Someone You Know and Love," the centerpiece of a year-and-a-half-long anti-stigma campaign. Marty Martinez, Chief of Health and Human Services for the City of Boston, offered remarks on behalf of Mayor Kim Janey, saying "I'm grateful for the slogan — you already know and love someone living with HIV." A live panel featuring long-term survivors Darren, Larry, Alfredo, and Tim — the committee's Consumer Chair — described four decades of stigma in healthcare, incarceration, and family settings, with Darren recounting a 1985 hospitalization in which staff entered his room in full protective gear and a more recent admission in which a physician still whispered about his HIV status: "In some ways, in 40 years, it hasn't changed at all." An audience member named Gertrude offered firsthand testimony about workplace discrimination at State Street Bank in 1984 and subsequent advocacy that prompted written responses from the Red Cross and the FDA correcting the false narrative that Haitian immigrants were responsible for introducing HIV to the United States.