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Atlanta woman living with HIV attempting to erase stigma that those with disease can't donate organs

She hopes her selfless gift can help spread awareness to those living with HIV to help empower them to become organ donors.

ATLANTA — For years, it has been impossible for those living with HIV to be organ donors. But thanks to the help of one Atlanta woman, that process is now changing. 

In 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Hope Act into law, which reversed a previous 1988 law which forbade those living with HIV to be able to donate their organs.

Johns Hopkins University school of medicine recently put out a new study that revealed positive results for three HIV-positive people two to four years after they donated a kidney.

One of those three tested was Atlanta native Nina Martinez. She acquired HIV through a blood transfusion just six weeks after she was born in 1983. Back in 2019, Martinez became the first person ever living in the United States living with HIV to donate a kidney to another HIV-positive person. 

She hopes her selfless gift can help spread awareness to those living with HIV to help empower them to become organ donors.

"People may not be living with HIV. Everyone has something to give. I hope that by seeing my story, they don't think that it's something that's just out there and something beyond their reach," Martinez said. "I think everyone can do a little something to make a difference."

Credit: Sarah Marie Mayo

At Johns Hopkins, Dr. Christine Durand was part of the groundbreaking study. She explained that the results also show a desire to move past previous stereotypes for those who carry the HIV disease.

"Part of their motivation was actually kind of overcoming the stigma associated with HIV and showing people that this is really that that HIV is not associated with a sense of illness and death and disease, but that actually there's really a sense of normalcy here," Durand said.

Back in 2019, 11Alive's Jennifer Bellamy sat down with Martinez just months after her transplant. Martinez said then she never learned she had HIV until 1991, the same year Lakers superstar Magic Johnson announced his diagnosis and retirement from the NBA. Back then, that's all she knew about the condition.

RELATED: 'You get to save a life' | Atlanta woman who became first living HIV-to-HIV kidney donor shares her experience

Martinez said what made her want to be a donor was when she learned a friend, also living with HIV, needed a kidney. Her friend sadly passed away, but she was still determined to give that gift to someone else.

"Having access to organs like mine, and those from other donors, allows people living with HIV to get transplanted quicker," Martinez told 11Alive in 2019. "And what's so great about that is, that when you take someone living with HIV off the wait list, everybody on the wait list moves up, whether they are HIV positive or not."

Today, Martinez is proud of the barriers she has broken in order to help save someone else's life who is living with the same rare condition. But Martinez said she's been breaking barriers all her life.

"You know, it's a legacy I'm happy to have," she said. "I recently turned 40, which honestly nobody ever expected. And, you know, after this, I kind of do look forward to taking some time to live for myself," adding, "now I can, I don't know, go jump out of a plane, do something wacky."

Watch Martinez's full interview with 11Alive in 2019 below:

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