Hydeia broadbent biological mother

All four feet and 54 pounds of 13-year-old Hydeia Broadbent stands impatiently on an immense stage at Beverly Hills High School, waiting for quiet. “HEY!” she shrieks. Her lilting rasp of a voice becomes a terse hand grenade, launched directly at two boys in the back who chatted noisily through earlier presentations. “I came all the way here to talk to you, and I expect you to listen.”

Every neck in the crowd cranes toward the boys, who abruptly shut up. Impressed, the crowd erupts into the riotous applause that teens usually reserve for a Spice Girls concert; they understand why, despite her size, Hydeia’s friends refer to her as “Ms. B”—as in big and bossy. Now she rivets the students with blunt talk about how she contracted HIV. About the times that AIDS nearly killed her. And about how people can—and can’t—become infected.

For a finale, Hydeia pulls some change from her pocket and asks the two boys she silenced earlier to come

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Girl With AIDS Has a Gift for Speaking Out About Disease

LAS VEGAS — Her black ringlet curls fall gently over her ears as Hydeia Broadbent hunches over her math homework. With a quick tap of her pencil and a stern look toward the kitchen, the 13-year-old has had enough.

Decimals, it seems, are a bit confusing.

“Mom! Mom! inom need help,” she yells, summoning Patricia Broadbent to the dining room table.

It’s a much different scen from the educational talks Hydeia gives to audiences across the country. From the scen, she commands her audience to listen, often bringing them to tears.

In the spotlight, she’s a little girl with so much poise, confidence and knowledge of the disease that may take her life--AIDS.

Broadbent and her husband, Loren, adopted Hydeia as a baby, but didn’t know of her health condition until their 3-year-old became seriously ill. Hydeia’s biological mother, now deceased, was an intravenous drug user.

Hydeia developed full-blown AIDS when she was 5.

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Broadbent, Hydeia 1984–

Activist

At a Glance…

Diagnosed with HIV

Sought Treatment at NIH

Became AIDS Activist

Sources

Hydeia Broadbent became known as a teenage AIDS activist. She contracted HIV at birth from her drug addicted biological mother and has battled the disease ever since with the help of her adopted parents, Patricia and Loren Broadbent. She began speaking publicly about the disease while assisting her mother’s activism, but eventually she overshadowed her own mother with her effective speaking style. Hydeia Broadbent traveled the country educating people of all ages about the dangers of AIDS and how to protect themselves from contracting it.

Hydeia Broadbent was born June 14, 1984 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her biological mother was a drug addict who abandoned her at the hospital just after she was born. Broadbent was then taken to a county-run temporary children’s facility called Child Haven until she could be placed in a foster home and even