The
focus of this issue of Positively Aware is on youth and HIV.
Ideally we would be reporting on scores of successful prevention
programs being conducted. Ideally, we would be telling you
of private funders and the government backing innovative,
effective programs to give teenagers and young adults the
knowledge, skills and support to minimize their risk of becoming
infected with HIV. Ideally, we would be talking about lowered
rates of infection for people under 25. Ideally.
The reality is quite different.
While there are many prevention and education programs around
the country, there are not enough. Prevention messages that
were once nearly inescapable in gay communities around the
country are now often hard to find, there or in the harder
hit communities of African Americans and Latinos. Twenty years
into the epidemic in this country, the major television networks
will not allow advertising for condoms. Twenty years later,
nearly 40% of Americans recently surveyed believe that one
might be able to “catch” HIV by sharing a glass
with an HIV positive person. Twenty years later, there is
a dramatic and alarming increase in unsafe behavior and HIV
infection rates among men and women under 25 years of age.
Why? How have we arrived
at this point where prevention has assumed a poor, second-class
status in our battle with HIV? There are many reasons. As
treatments have improved, the perception has taken hold that
becoming infected is “no big deal.” Many people,
especially teenagers and younger adults, think current treatments
make HIV just another manageable disease. Limited funds for
HIV go towards direct services—housing, health care,
mental health services, etc. Private funders no longer perceive
HIV to be a crisis, and have shifted their funding to other
issues. And “morals” have gotten in the way. The
government generally has supported abstinence only or “just
say no” campaigns, not ones that promote safer sex or
access to sterile syringes.
Unfortunately, this bias
is likely to become more pronounced with the Bush-II administration.
Indications from the Bush-II White House are that the federal
government will be returning to the policies more associated
with the Reagan and Bush-I administrations. This means that
the chances of prevention programs that go beyond “just
say no” are slimmer than they were in the Clinton administration,
which itself had a poor record in this area.
The tragedy of this can be
seen in recent numbers from San Francisco, New York City,
and elsewhere. There is a sharp increase in the number of
new HIV infections, particularly among people under 25. In
San Francisco, recent information released by that city’s
health department indicates the rate of infection among gay
males has more than doubled over the last three years.
We must have meaningful and
substantial prevention messages and programs if we are to
avoid another wave of HIV infections. Now is the time to let
your legislators know the importance of comprehensive prevention
education—prevention that goes beyond the simplistic
“just say no” or that promote abstinence only. Write
your legislators and tell them HIV prevention and education
is a cost effective means to reduce the spread of HIV. Help
them to understand its importance to the health of young adults.
Let us not have tens of thousands
of more young Americans become HIV-positive simply because
government officials wish to claim the “moral high ground”
as it relates to sex and intravenous drugs. Prevention and
education programs must be adequately funded to prevent this
tragedy from happening. Help lawmakers to understand this.
Dennis Hartke
Executive Director
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