The Bad News Bias

A big announcement dropped a couple weeks ago.

A pre-exposure prophylaxis medication against HIV had its phase 3 study end early… because it had already shown to be so effective that anything delaying this from getting to the public would at this point be unethical.

The tools to end, or at least significantly disarm the threat of HIV within our lifetime are now coming into focus, and I keep thinking about some of the HIV-impacted kids I spent some of my earliest post-college years working with.

This is perhaps the 6th or 7th major disease this decade I’ve seen this happen with. What would’ve been an ominous prognosis 20 years ago is now liveable. I’ve also seen very few headlines about this. No major media outlet blasted this, you would’ve likely needed to seek it out, or have heard about it from someone more immersed in HIV reporting.

I think of all the people I know who face copious anxiety, at least partially because of all that goes on in the world. Yes, there are a ton of horrors too. But bad news travels so much faster than good news, even really good news. Don’t forget to factor that in to however you feel about the world.