Cass Mann

Cass Mann (17 October 1948 – 18 April 2009) was an AIDS activist.

Early life

Raised in India he moved to London during his mid-teens. He found the change of both schools and country very disorienting and unsettling. He also fell out with his father after he remarried and lived independently from his mid-teens. Through this experience he developed a tenacity that was evident throughout his life.

Deadly Counsels

I declare that the greatest danger to people living with "HIV" and "AIDS" is the wholesale pollution of "AIDS" counselling by the death-promoting and life-negating philosophy of such counsellors as Kübler-Ross, whose disciples have been placed in practically all the major UK "AIDS" counselling agencies, with tragic consequences. When people come to them for advice, the Kübler-Ross counsellors tell them to prepare for their own imminent death, which, they unscientifically claim, inevitably follows a diagnosis of being HIV-antibody positive.

A year before his death Cass was commissioned by AIDS Videos to make a number of short films encapsulating Positively Healthy's message. The videos went live on YouTube in March 2008.

Final years and death

Cass remained faithful to this ethos both in his work at Positively Healthy and in his own life. Following his HIV diagnosis in 1985, he lived a full and active life until his health began to decline 23 years later, reportedly from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. As his health deteriorated he became increasingly private and isolated himself from everyone other than his closest friends. he died in 2009.