This magazine issue was published with the blood of HIV+

fuad lawal

April 30, 2015 11:31 PM

Vienna-based progressive men's mag Vangardist printed 3,000 copies of the provocative issue using pasteurized blood of HIV+ people.

Vangardist's spring issue shouts on the cover, "This Magazine Has Been Printed With The Blood of HIV+ People" in what its publishers hope will actually tamp down fears rather than inflame them.

The minds behind the Vienna-based magazine's hope to spark conversations about the illness and stimgatization they say have waned in recent years even as transmission is on the rise.

"There's been an 80 percent increase in HIV in the last 10 years and that's pretty shocking," Jason Romeyko of Saatchi & Saatchi Switzerland, who helped create the cover, told CBS News. "The reason why that's happening is people just aren't talking about it anymore," he added.

Three thousand copies of the magazine were printed in the blood of three people living with HIV and their stories appear in its pages.

One is a gay man in Germany who calls himself 'one of the most normal guys on the planet,' another is a straight man who recently contracted the virus and a third person who lent her blood to the project is a mother who's lived with HIV for decades.

Blood taken from the three was first taken to a lab, where the virus was neutralized. Though, had this step been omitted, the magazines would still be safe to handle by readers.

"Scientifically, the virus dies naturally outside the body. It takes about 30 minutes for it to decompose," Romeyko explained.

Once pasteurized, the blood was mixed with ink, 28 parts ink to 1 parts blood. This was to ensure the safety of readers.

HIV is very sensitive to changes in alkalinity, and can't survive the pH level of ink.

The finished product was then slipped into a plastic sleeve, which reads: "Break the seal and help break the stigma."

fuad lawal