Those unfortunate people as of late have been popping up in the inner cities primarily in the Black communities. “We (blacks) make up over 50% of all new cases,” he says. “We’ve got to change that. The only way we can do that is to really get on the ground.” Johnson has said that his drug taking routine includes the pharmaceutical drugs Trizivir and Kaletra which are used by thousands of other HIV/AIDS patients. In 1994 Magic was the recipient of a new treatment created by Dr. David Ho. It was a cocktail of antiretroviral medications that decrease the level of HIV in your body and prevented you from developing full blown AIDS.
According to Dr. Ho, Magic was taking the drug a full year before it hit the market; “Since we pioneered that therapy, we were able to include Mr. Johnson early, and it made a major difference in his health and overall being.” So maybe that’s where the speculation comes from in regards to Johnson; and his perceived preferential treatment. Magic acknowledged that his star status is good for the virus but at the same time that same status can be a bad thing.
“I often say I’m good for the virus, and bad for it,” Johnson said. “Good because I’m doing well, and that I can go out and try and raise the awareness level, get people to go get tested … but on the flip side of that, people see that I’m doing well, so they’ve kind of relaxed on HIV and AIDS. People think that now if they get the virus, they’ll do well, but a couple million will die this year.”
This Article First Appeared in The Black Truth News Volume 2 Issue 11 November 2011