Sharleen Spiteri (died 2005) was an Australian HIV+ sex worker, who became the focus of significant media, public and New South Wales Government attention in Australia after appearing on the 60 Minutes television programme in 1989, where she revealed in an interview that she sometimes had sex with clients without revealing her illness or using condoms. [1] [2]
After the 60 Minutes programme went to air, Spiteri was forcibly detained by New South Wales Police and Health Department authorities, using an obscure section of the Public Health Act (Section 32a), originally intended for the control of tuberculosis. She was kept in detention in Prince Henry Hospital's AIDS ward, and then Rozelle Mental Hospital for several weeks.
Into the early 1990s Spiteri's case continued to spark national public debate. A new law was introduced in New South Wales, colloquially known as "Sharleen's Law" where informed consent prior to sexual intercourse was required.
Although there were many other sex workers in the community who were also HIV+, in similar situations and known to authorities, after her initial release Spiteri came under subsequent public health orders (as well as other agreements undisclosed by the NSW Health Department), spending much of the remaining 16 years of her life under supervision of health workers as a public patient of the NSW Health system.
She died in 2005.
In 2015, Tom Morton and Eurydice Aroney, both journalists and lecturers at the University of Technology Sydney, [3] [4] published Journalism, Moral Panic and the Public Interest - The Case of Sharleen Spiteri. [5] The paper questioned the ethics of the reporting of Spiteri's case. [5]
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community.
HIV-positive people, seropositive people or people who live with HIV are people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus which if untreated may progress to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Eve van Grafhorst was one of the first Australian children to be infected with HIV via a blood transfusion. She became the centre of a controversy in 1985 when she was banned from her local pre-school amid fears she might infect other children.
Criminal transmission of HIV is the intentional or reckless infection of a person with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This is often conflated, in laws and in discussion, with criminal exposure to HIV, which does not require the transmission of the virus and often, as in the cases of spitting and biting, does not include a realistic means of transmission. Some countries or jurisdictions, including some areas of the U.S., have enacted laws expressly to criminalize HIV transmission or exposure, charging those accused with criminal transmission of HIV. Other countries charge the accused under existing laws with such crimes as murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, assault or fraud.
St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney is a leading tertiary referral hospital and research facility located in Darlinghurst, Sydney. Though funded and integrated into the New South Wales state public health system, it is operated by St Vincent's Health Australia. It is affiliated with the University of Tasmania College of Health and Medicine and the University of New South Wales Medical School.
Prostitution in Australia is governed by state and territory laws, which vary considerably, although none ban the selling of sex itself.
The People's Republic of China's first reported AIDS case was identified in 1985 in a dying tourist. In 1989, the first indigenous cases were reported as an outbreak in 146 infected heroin users in Yunnan province, near China's southwest border.
The history of HIV/AIDS in Australia is distinctive, as Australian government bodies recognised and responded to the AIDS pandemic relatively swiftly, with the implementation of effective disease prevention and public health programs, such as needle and syringe programs (NSPs). As a result, despite significant numbers of at-risk group members contracting the virus in the early period following its discovery, Australia achieved and has maintained a low rate of HIV infection in comparison to the rest of the world.
With less than 0.1 percent of the population estimated to be HIV-positive, Bangladesh is a low HIV-prevalence country.
Vietnam faces a concentrated HIV epidemic among high-risk groups, including sex workers, and intravenous drug users. There are cases of HIV/AIDS in all provinces of Vietnam, though low testing rates make it difficult to estimate how prevalent the disease is. The known rates among high-risk groups are high enough that there is a risk of HIV/AIDS rates increasing among the general population as well. People who are HIV+ face intense discrimination in Vietnam, which does not offer legal protections to those living with the condition. Stigma, along with limited funding and human research, make the epidemic difficult to control.
Elaine Blanche Nile was an Australian politician who represented the Christian Democratic Party in the New South Wales Legislative Council between 1988 and 2002. Nile was married to Fred Nile from 1958 until her death.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights in Queensland have advanced significantly from the late 20th century onwards, in line with progress on LGBTQ rights in Australia nationally. 2019 polling on gay rights consistently showed that even in regional areas, Queensland is no more conservative about the subject than any other states.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in the Australian state of New South Wales have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual individuals and couples. LGBTQ rights in New South Wales enjoy bipartisan support.
Luke Aquinas Foley is a former Australian Labor Party politician who served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales from 2015 to 2018. Foley was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 19 June 2010 until his resignation to contest the Legislative Assembly seat of Auburn at the 2015 New South Wales election. Foley resigned after it was alleged that he had indecently assaulted an ABC journalist. Foley denies the allegations.
AIDS photo diary, 1986–1990 is an art work that comprises a photo diary that records the decline in health and eventual death of David Tosh, from AIDS from 1986 to 1990 in Sydney, Australia. The diary – with accompanying photographs taken by John Jenner – was created by Jenner to remember his friend and honour the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS. Some of the images were featured in an article in Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine, 13 October 1990, pp. 20–29.
Cheryl Overs is a founder and former first director of the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria, the Scarlet Alliance in Australia and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1957 and educated at University High School and La Trobe University. Overs set up organisations, oversaw events and authored texts that established the place of sex workers' rights within the global response to HIV/AIDS.
David Albert Cooper was an Australian HIV/AIDS researcher, immunologist, professor at the University of New South Wales, and the director of the Kirby Institute. He and Professor Ron Penny diagnosed the first case of HIV in Australia.
John Michael Dwyer, is an Australian doctor, professor of medicine, and public health advocate. He was originally a Professor of Medicine and Paediatrics, then Head of the Department of Clinical Immunology at Yale University. Returning to Australia, he became Head of the Department of Medicine and the Clinical Dean at the University of New South Wales and Director of Medicine at Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital, the University's major teaching hospital, for over twenty years. In retirement he is an Emeritus Professor of Medicine of the University. He founded the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance, and was the founding president of the Friends of Science in Medicine until 2019. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to public health.
Roberta Perkins was an Australian sociologist, writer, and transgender rights and sex worker rights activist. She wrote several books and multiple academic articles on the semi-nomadic lives of transgender sex workers, and established the first assistance center for transgender people in Australia.
Bobby Goldsmith Foundation (BGF) is an Australian HIV charity based in Sydney, New South Wales. It aims to provide practical, emotional and financial assistance to people living with HIV and currently operates in New South Wales and Adelaide. It was formed in July 1984 from a trust fund organised after the death of Bobby Goldsmith, who was the first person in New South Wales to be publicly recognised as having died of AIDS-related illness. It is one of Australia's oldest HIV charities.