Is that relevant to anything?

Well it is to those rugby players who may have been playing against him. Blood to blood contact is highly possible in a game of rugby.

It opens up an interesting debate about whether rugby players should be tested for HIV.

As for the man himself, I have great respect for him and what he has done to raise awareness/openness of his and others situations.

It opens up an interesting debate about whether rugby players should be tested for HIV.

…and verrucas. I used to get verrucas all the time when I was playing Rugby. Must’ve been the communal showers/bath.

I played rugby against Gareth a good few times, and i don’t think it was of concern, knowing what the media is like was when he chose not to come out until his career was coming to an end and thats terrible in this day and age, he had the support of the Welsh team. He’s a really nice bloke and pretty tasty on a bike having left me on many a hill on Etape Cymru a few years back.

I played rugby against Gareth a good few times … He’s a really nice bloke and pretty tasty on a bike having left me on many a hill on Etape Cymru a few years back.

That’s not even a humblebrag, it’s just a brag.

Well it is to those rugby players who may have been playing against him. Blood to blood contact is highly possible in a game of rugby.

This is why the blood bin rule was brought in – so bleeding wounds could be sealed up without the team being a player short.

No they should not be tested for HIV. the best way is to use precautions for EVERY situation and get anyone with a bleeding wound off the pitch quickly. allways treat ALL blood as if its infected with everything

Such a shitty thing to happen. I’m glad he’s called them out on it. I know a lot of people in the public eye would have folded under pressure and offered them an ‘exclusive interview’ in exchange for a favourable headline.

A lot of what’s left of the press in the UK are deplorable. There’s always been arseholes, but the good ones seem few and far between these days, it’s sad that they are able to use the laws than ensure they can report on serious misdoings by people in power to create sleazy headlines to sell a few more clicks.

Linky? I can’t find anything about an injunction over the HIV issue. As far as I can find the HIV issue came out this this weekend at exactly the right time to promote a documentary that had already been made and during the RWC when a raised media profile will mean £££s to him.

Some serious cynicism. You won’t find a link to the injunction – they are confidentital of course since granted – as are existence of the proceedings. But the course of events will have been as follows:

1) Journalist learns GT is HIV +ve from friend or colleague or friend of a friend who knows the fact
2) Journalist doorstops GT parent to “corroborate” information and get more data with plan to run a splash “in the public interest”.
3) GT seeks injunction to prevent publication. This is granted and will not be made public – nor will the proceedings since it was granted.
4) A controlled release of information by JT is planned to include a documentary
5) A documentary is produced under embargo conditions for release at IM Wales

I very much doubt he took any appearance money, stated he had donated to Terrence Higgins Trust his appearance money from other events.

OK it will raise his media profile, but above what? He’s Gareth Thomas.

The media works in ways in which people are often unfamiliar. There are rules.

The Sun on Sunday had a “exclusive” story in August that “a British sports star is set to publicly announce that they are HIV positive”
The Sun
Odds on it was one of their journalists that door stepped GT’s parents.

I know it may not be the most popular question, but when was he aware that he was HIV+, was it during his playing career? If so, were all his opposing competitors and medical staff at the ground informed? If not I can see law suits coming his way.

I’d assume it was certainly pre 2016 when he married his partner, who isn’t infected.

There will be no law suits. The RFU make no requirements for HIV disclosure. Nor does my workplace for that matter. What is likely is that within days of a positive diagnosis (at any date) a patient will begin antiretroviral therapy and will with a week or two have completely undetectable viral load. (Being HIV positive does not mean you have transmisible virus, it means your body has mounted an immune response to HIV virus and you have detectable antibodies against the virus). That has been standard of care for many years now. With ART there is no transmission risk. Previous therapies were taken as multiple tablets, several times a day. Concealing this to others will have been challenging to patients. Modern therapies combine two, three or four drugs into a single tablet, taken once every day (for the rest of the patients life).

Now there is an occasion where disclosure of HIV is helpful, and that is when other medicines are to be administered. Pain for example in rugby players springs to mind. One of the HIV drugs is used to also block the metabolism of others. This drug (ritonavir) also block metabolism of many other drugs, so their doses may need adjusting to prevent accidental overdose.

Btw, your question is not unreasonable, but merely a reflection of the general ignorance surrounding HIV and the legacy of a well-meaning and dramatic publicity campaign from the 80’s. Sadly the documentary was right in that the public have not been kept up to date with modern HIV prevention and treatment.

In rugby, the management of blood injuries is to prevent accidental transmission, which is very low already. There are far more transmissible infectious agents than untreated HIV. Hepatitis virus is a good example.

Btw, your question is not unreasonable, but merely a reflection of the general ignorance surrounding HIV and the legacy of a well-meaning and dramatic publicity campaign from the 80’s.

Thanks for explaining at an understandable level, very helpful 👍

And that wasn’t recent btw, that was some time ago, when the injunction was served.

Linky? I can’t find anything about an injunction over the HIV issue.

You won’t find a link to the injunction – they are confidentital of course since granted – as are existence of the proceedings.

If true, your original claim that there was on injunction must have been fabricated.

..but it isn’t true. If there had been a Super injunction it would no longer be secret for two reasons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in_English_law#Disclosure

I’m not convinced the timing is an accident. As others have said it takes time to make a documentary and I’m quite sure in media circles who is making documentaries about what is quite well known. I’m quite sure that several people will have already seen the programme on pre release for the media. I would be interested to know how and when he contracted the disease especially as a player in a game noted for glose contact and blood been split

I would be interested to know how and when he contracted the disease

WTF has it got to do with you? Would you like him to draw a picture and sign it for you?

Watched it last night.

A very brave decision, sensitively filmed and clearly an emotional journey for him that I hope has only positive effects on his long term mental health.

As others have said it takes time to make a documentary and I’m quite sure in media circles who is making documentaries about what is quite well known. I’m quite sure that several people will have already seen the programme on pre release for the media

Agree. “Press got wind of GT’s HIV status because of the Documentary” seems more likely than “Press found out GT was HIV (how?) & forced the production of a documentary before the press could publish the story”.

The Sun article from August totally supports that timeline.

WTF has it got to do with you?

None of it is anything to do with any of us, and yet here were are talking about it and consuming media about it.

and yet here were are talking about it and consuming media about it.

Most of us were being critical of media and showing support for Alfie not wanting more info about what he should have been able to keep private, but then maybe most of us have different values.

Most of us were being critical of media and showing support for Alfie

Doesn’t matter it’s all clicks, the advertisers media don’t GAF if the people tuning in support it or not they make the same money from someone who loves the story as they do from the people who hate it.

I despise this story, the press and much of the media, I still couldn’t resist clicking on the link above to the Sun’s article to see what it said first hand and I’ve read everything on the BBC about this, but I’ve managed to resist the documentary itself. (Even though, personally, I’m pretty convinced he made it of his own free choice.)

We have people in this thread who think GT was forced to make a documentary against his will and then tuned in to watch the thing he was forced to make!!!!

The press are the symptom, *we* are the problem, the worse the media is the more we consume it. This thread is the classic example.

If true, your original claim that there was on injunction must have been fabricated.

My claim that there was an injunction was based on GT’s statement on the documentary that he sought and was granted an injunction. That means it does not become public.

As for “forced” to make, I think his hand was forced by the media intrusion. He stated he had no plans to reveal his HIV status – and why should he? He had previously revealed he was gay. I see no disparity here. He stated he wanted to remove the sword of Damocles of further potential media intrusion and going public would be the way to do it. The sun’s article was clearly published in spite and was carefully written so as not to break either an injunction or embargo because he spoke to the Mirror and probably a few other journalists on other papers. They will have been aware of this.

My claim that there was an injunction was based on GT’s statement on the documentary that he sought and was granted an injunction.

So far from secret it was actually mentioned in the documentary. Ok, so there *was* an injunction over JT’s HIV status. [1] When was it? If it was August around the time of the Sun story, it still seems likely the source of the story was the documentary. If it was much earlier I’d assume it’s the other way round.

[1] I’m assuming you’re not getting confused with the earlier injunction over his sexuality.

No, he stated he took out an injunction over his HIV status. Presumably about the time they wanted to publish, which I think was when they confronted his father last year.

Whilst not a super-injunction, all such injunctions are anonymised if granted. So it would not be possible to identify it against any other “News International# vs XYZ” case listed and I’m sure there are plenty of those 😉

He also stated he couldn’t afford to maintain it, presuming it would be challenged in court. So what to do?

#other media outlets are available, but it looks like it were the Sun that dun it.

Presumably about the time they wanted to publish, which I think was when they confronted his father last year.

Well, if we find that out the timing of all that we’ll have our answer.

He also stated he couldn’t afford to maintain it, presuming it would be challenged in court. So what to do?

Yup, the media suck and you need cash to defend yourself from them and yes, that puts people in a position where they are forced to disclose stuff that’s private. No doubt about all of that. The question is did that happen this time. ie Did the documentary trigger the press interest or vice versa. Given the only media story we can find on this is from August, the first story to name him was this weekend and the Documentary was out this week I suspect it was the former. If it transpires that ~6 months or more ago JT got an injunction to keep his HIV status out of the media then I’d suspect it was the latter.

I think the Sun story in August was them trying their luck having been thwarted by the injunction and needing a “spoiler” because they were left out of the forthcoming media show. But yes, the timing of events is important. He did say the doorstepping was last year, so I’m inclined to think that was the timing of the injunction – that and how long it takes to make a documentary.

It also showed him basically learning to swim – and that will have taken some time too. He was pretty rubbish at the start! He said he was always handy on a bike though (phew!).

Semi related but more stunningly disgusting behaviour from gutter press

Just received notification from the Mail on Sunday that, in a week in which I have received death threats, they are tomorrow going to publish my private address.

— Jo Maugham QC (@JolyonMaugham) September 21, 2019

I can’t even fathom why they would do this. He’s a vocal anti brexit voice. As tensions continue to rise, there’s no telling what some unhinged lunatic could do. The MoS is basically inciting violence.

How do we solve this, yet still retain a free press?

There’s no way that should be legal. 🙁

WTF has it got to do with you?

Us personally nothing, but he has now shared to the world that he has HIV, and shared to the world that he is gay, yet he won’t say when he found out he had HIV. Something potentially in the closet there which he doesn’t want to share.

Semi related but more stunningly disgusting behaviour from gutter press

As long as the nutters don’t have Google, he should be OK.

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10503667.amp/

Something potentially in the closet there which he doesn’t want to share.

SFW? it’s nobody’s business but him and his partners at the time – maybe he doesn’t want to compromise their privacy?

As long as the nutters don’t have Google, he should be OK.

The difference being, this is targeted now because of his brexit stance. Of course anyone can find out where someone lives but this is an invitation to target the guy and his family