Hydeia Broadbent, who was born with HIV and has spent nearly her whole life – since she was a child — advocating for HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, died on February 20 at a neurological rehabilitation clinic in Las Vegas. She was 39.
Ms. Broadbent, whose biological mother was addicted to drugs and later diagnosed with HIV, was three and a half when she tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus. She was five years old when she had acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, also known as AIDS, which is caused by the virus.
Ms. Broadbent, whose biological mother was drug-addicted and later diagnosed with HIV, was three and a half years old when she tested positive for the HIV virus. She was five years old when she developed immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is caused by the virus.
Ms. Broadbent, who was cared for by her adoptive parents Loren and Pat Broadbent, was one of the first pediatric patients to receive AZT and other antiretroviral medications for HIV/AIDS treatment. She battled near-constant health issues to outlive her original life expectancy by more than three decades.
Loren Broadbent confirmed his daughter’s death but stated he didn’t know the cause. He stated that she had a heart attack and a suspected stroke in September and had been hospitalized or in rehabilitation since then.
Ms. Broadbent rose to national attention in 1992 when she appeared on Nickelodeon, the children’s television channel, with Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the basketball star who had recently announced that he was positive for HIV.
At the time, an HIV diagnosis carried crippling stigma because the virus, which is transmitted through blood, semen and other body fluids but not through casual contact, was often associated with gay men and users of intravenous drugs.
Before he passed away at the age of 18 in 1990, Ryan White—a well-known teenage HIV/AIDS campaigner who appeared on the national scene before Ms. Broadbent—had to battle for his right to attend public schools in Indiana. He received an HIV infection from a blood transfusion and developed hemophilia.
As Johnson tried to comfort her, 7-year-old Ms. Broadbent said, “I want people to know that we’re just normal people,” crying as she spoke to the Nickelodeon audience. Afterwards, Johnson claimed that Ms. Broadbent had encouraged him to dedicate his life to HIV/AIDS advocacy. In 2006, Ms. Broadbent told the New York Times that her television appearance with him served as a “bridge to a higher profile and more confidence.”
She started giving talks on a regular basis on television, at churches, and at HIV/AIDS events. She explained the reality of her illness when she went on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show when she was eleven years old.
She suffered from ailments including a fungus in her brain, blood infections, pneumonia, and other medical problems that occasionally brought her dangerously close to death, despite the medication regimes that had significantly prolonged and improved her life. She claimed that “when your friends die” was the worst aspect of her illness.
However, Ms. Broadbent also imparted a message of resiliency and optimism. “The next doctor is me. The next lawyer is me. The next Maya Angelou is me. Perhaps I will be the first female president. She said, “I am the future, and I have AIDS,” as she was highlighted at the Republican convention in 1996.
As she grew older, Ms. Broadbent addressed youth directly on strategies to halt HIV transmission. She promoted condom use and other safe-sex practices for those who are sexually active in addition to abstinence. She focused her speech on the effects of the illness on the Black community because she is African American.
“I have devoted my entire existence to this battle,” Ms. Broadbent stated to CNN back in 2012. “I don’t detest who I am. I consider myself quite fortunate. On the other hand, their life doesn’t have to be mine. When it came to HIV/AIDS, I was powerless, but others are free to choose.
Born in Las Vegas on June 14, 1984, Ms. Broadbent was given the name Hydeia by her prospective adoptive parents when she was six weeks old. When her adoption was formally finalized, she assumed the middle name Loren in honor of her adoptive father.
According to news reports about Ms. Broadbent’s life, her biological mother abandoned her at birth. In an interview, Ms. Broadbent’s half-sister Kimberley McCoy said that their mother wanted to retain Hydeia but was refused custody due to her drug addiction.
Health officials contacted the Broadbent family and requested that Hydeia be tested after Ms. Broadbent’s original mother gave birth to another child and it was discovered that both she and the child were HIV positive. It was discovered that she also had the virus.
The adoptive father of Ms. Broadbent was a charity home weatherization organization’s director and a former drug and alcohol counselor. From their Las Vegas home, Hydeia routinely traveled with her adoptive mother, a social worker, to the National Institutes of Health outside of Washington, D.C., where she was treated.
Her parents eventually got divorced after adopting three kids in total, one of whom was HIV positive.
Loren Broadbent stated that when Ms. Broadbent sneezed in kindergarten, a teacher who was aware of her HIV status doused her with Clorox. The incident and Hydeia’s recurrent health setbacks led the Broadbents to homeschool her until junior high school, with tutoring support.
Ms. Broadbent met Elizabeth Glaser, the spouse of “Starsky & Hutch” star Paul Michael Glaser, while undergoing medical care. In 1981, Elizabeth Glaser received a blood transfusion during childbirth, which resulted in her contracting HIV. She later had the illness in both her son and daughter.
Elizabeth Glaser assisted in founding the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation following the death of her daughter in 1988. Enthralled with Hydeia, who enjoyed pretending to be the news reporter from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” at the age of five, she set up some of her initial public engagements prior to her Nickelodeon appearance alongside Johnson.
Johnson wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, following Ms. Broadbent’s passing, saying, “Hydeia changed the world with her bravery, speaking about how living with HIV affected her life since birth.”
He said, “She helped so many people, young and old, by speaking out at such a young age because she wasn’t afraid to share her story and made it clear to everyone that people living with HIV and AIDS were regular people who should be treated with respect.”
Ms. Broadbent claimed that she occasionally had an unbearable “pressure to be perfect.” She talked about falling into depression. However, those who knew her noted that she also found great satisfaction and significance in her profession, particularly in her accomplishment of making a positive difference in the lives of those living with HIV and AIDS.
Renowned AIDS researcher Anthony S. Fauci, who went on to head the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was acquainted with Ms. Broadbent during her early NIH treatment days and stated in an interview that her “accomplishments are substantial.”
The fact that a small child who was born with HIV said, “We are normal, we are real people,” struck him as particularly effective in eradicating stigma.
Her adoptive parents, who reside in Las Vegas, as well as several of her siblings from both her biological and adopted families, are among her survivors. It took some time for a full list of survivors to become public. Beverly Page, her actual mother, passed away in 1993, and Ronald Dishmon, her biological father, passed away in 1992.
When Ms. Broadbent was eleven years old, she told Oprah, “Nobody really knows how long anybody’s going to live.” “I don’t tell myself things like, ‘Oh, you have AIDS,’ or ‘I could get hit by a bus outside tomorrow.'”
“Why get up and try to make a difference if you stay in your bed and feel sorry for yourself, and don’t get up with the birds and just sit there and say ‘I’m going to die?'” she asked. “Today’s another day, though, doesn’t mean I can’t get up and do something constructive.”
Reference- Hydeia Broadbent, young activist for HIV/AIDS awareness, dies at 39