Disease Treatment as Self-Expression

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Across the street from a Brooklyn bar I've been to once or twice -- oh, OK, maybe three or four times -- all right already, twice a week for the last year -- is a billboard advertising some drug for treating HIV. I don't recall the name of the drug, but the featured slogan is "Treat HIV your own way."

Isn't there something very odd about that? I mean, if I had a life-threatening disease (and please, I'm not trying to open a discussion about whether or not HIV is the cause of AIDS, an irrelevant issue given that the target audience of the ad accepts that it does), my focus would be on treating it in the most effective way, not in my own way.

Is one's course of treatment now a fashion statement, like a haircut or a body piercing? Obviously, at least some marketing professionals think so, since this ad campaign is out there.

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