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Michael Dorosh: The Healer of Our Community

Michael Dorosh: The Healer of Our Community

HIV

Recently, the well-known Queer Eye celebrity Jonathan Van Ness announced publicly that he is among the nearly 650,000 LGBTQ men who are currently living with HIV. This was applauded by the greater media and public, and folks like Van Ness need to be acknowledged for their bravery in standing in the face of stigma and potential judgement in order to shed light onto the topic that greatly affects this community so disproportionately.

When the community was facing the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 90s, the discrimination, misinformation, and stigmatization against those who had this illness was silencing to queer folks, as they watched their very own chosen family members suffer and pass on in staggering numbers. And these days, most stories of folks living with HIV and AIDS go untold and even unnoticed.

Devastation of HIV in Denver

“I go back to the days when a different friend died every week back in the 80s and early 90s,” 2019 Power Winner Michael Dorosh said. As former general manager of Tracks and the now-closed Fox Hole, in addition to bartending at Charlie’s, Dorosh was immersed in the LGBTQ community and witnessed first-hand the devastation that impacted the gay men of Denver. He admittedly never saw a sunrise, enjoying the life of working in the nightclub scene and staying out until 2 or 3 a.m. But then, his health started to diminish, and everything changed.

Soon, Dorosh realized he was now fighting his own battle with HIV. This lead him to a randomized, clinical trial where he had a 50/50 chance of being administered a potentially life-saving drug or a placebo. He found himself after nine months of taking what was to become his second chance at life. Then, he found his way to activism and advocacy, getting deep into the weeds of research and the fight to find a cure.

He first held a position on an advisory board at the University of Colorado AIDS Clinical Trial Group in 1995 and then went on to serve on numerous planning councils, boards of directors, and state committees all focused on addressing the need for educating the community and providing adequate and equal access to life-saving treatments. He has also been affiliated with Denver Public Health and UC Denver. He is now held in high esteem and respect for his knowledge on HIV and AIDS treatments

Recently, Dorosh co-founded Treatment Educat10n Network (TEN), whose mission is educating and empowering people living with HIV by providing information, skills, and knowledge about living well with HIV, not simply living longer. The all-volunteer program, which utilizes peer-to-peer support services, has become a staple resource for folks living with the illness and looking for a relatable community.

A Cultural Shift

Through his years of activism and advocacy, however, Dorosh has noticed that the conversation around HIV and AIDS has shifted from one of urgent to old news.

“The younger people, they just have to watch a documentary to find out about it, and they’re sort of sick of hearing about it, like ‘Oh God, not this story again; we’ve already heard this,’ he said.

He admitted that the attendance in 2019 at events like AIDS Walk Colorado has been incredibly low.

“I think a lot of people think it’s ‘healed,’or it’s really no big deal anymore. And in many respects, it isn’t. And yet, it is. It just isn’t popular; it’s not trendy,” Dorosh said. “People don’t perceive HIV as a death sentence anymore.”

So, when public figures like Van Ness utilize their platform for the proclamation of being one person of the hundreds of thousands who are living a full and thriving life with HIV, that can bring visibility to folks who aren’t getting the applause and a warm hug by society for their bravery. Yet, they are brave, and their stories are just as important.

“The disease that we have no pill for, no treatment for, is stigma. For many people, I’m poison, which is ridiculous,” Dorosh said with a chuckle. In all seriousness though, it’s the cases of early and undetected infection that are far more damaging than a case like Dorosh’s, as he’s been on treatment for years.

Related article: The Drop Reimagines HIV Care in the Mile High City

Unlike a person who has had a heart attack, a person diagnosed with cancer, or someone managing diabetes, a lot of people who have HIV hide it from their friends, families, and co-workers because of the miseducation and misunderstanding of contraction and illness management.

“That stigma is a really, really tough thing. There’s a lot of stigma out there for a lot of reasons, especially for gay people, women, people of color, all kinds of folks,” he said. “We don’t need stigma with HIV, and we try really hard to combat that.”

Now, with movements like U=U (undetectable=untransmittable) and PrEP for Prevention becoming more mainstream, Dorosh has hope that, through persistent and proper education, prevention, and maintenance if contracted, folks will get the chance to live a life they never thought possible only 20 years ago.

Hands on a Cure

“One thing that we can’t ignore is that we made amazing advances in treatment,” he said.”We were the very first people that got involved in the research, the very first people that demanded things, going back to the days of Act Up. We were the very first people that got involved in research as consumers, and now everybody’s getting more involved. Cancer patients are more involved in the research and the treatment components as people living with the disease or condition.”

While there is so much to celebrate in the way of medical advances, and even slight chips out of the mountain that is HIV and AIDS stigma, Dorosh knows that there is still a lot of work that he and other champions in this field need to do.

“A lot of people who are living with HIV, despite the fact that they may be doing well on medications, still struggle with a lot of things,” Dorosh said. “There’s so many side issues, comorbidities like premature aging, chronic inflammation, cardiovascular diseases, issues in just about every organ in our bodies, and, of course, the brain. There’s something called H.A.N.D, HIV Associated Neurocognitive Disorder, because there’s a lot of damage in the brain, and people do have cognitive impairment.”

Dorosh believes that we are on the cusp of some groundbreaking medications and treatments that could help society see the end of the HIV and AIDS epidemic as we know it.

“There are a lot of advances in cure research, that being a functional cure where the virus is there, but it’s completely inactive, or a sanitizing cure, where the virus is gone. That’s the cure field, but the epidemic is what I believe is going to end,” he said. “If 90 percent of people know their status; 90 percent of those people are in care, and 90 percent of those people are in therapy, we basically end the epidemic.”

Saying this, Dorosh gets energized and begins to glow. For him, this work is far more than simply finding a cure for himself; it’s about continuing to create a better life for those who come long after him because of those we lost long before him.

Photo by Veronica L. Holyfield

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