by Kari Bellingham, Columnist
World AIDS Day came and went two days ago, with many individuals on the UW campus unaware that the day was different than any other. Even for those who did acknowledge the day dedicated to promoting awareness about this devastating pandemic, the thought of AIDS is likely no longer on their mind.
With finals week fast approaching and end-of-the semester projects due, many students feel they can safely sweep the issue of AIDS to the backburner. After all, it’s an issue that many people feel “will never affect me.” Unfortunately, AIDS affects all of us. Maybe we will never get the disease or even directly know someone who has it, but this rapidly growing pandemic will indirectly affect all of our lives.
Take, for example, the frightening statistics recently released. According to estimates from the Joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), 37 million adults and 2.5 million children were living with human immunodeficiency virus (the virus that causes AIDS) at the end of 2003. These figures are more than 50 percent higher than the figures projected by WHO in 1991 on the basis of the data then available.
During 2003, approximately five million people became infected with HIV. And, despite antiretroviral therapy, the same year saw three million people die from HIV/AIDS. In addition, around half of the people who acquire HIV become infected before they turn 25 and typically die of the life-threatening illness called AIDS before their 35th birthdays. By the end of 2001, the epidemic had left behind 14 million AIDS orphans, defined as children who lost one or both parents to AIDS before reaching the age of 15.
Despite these alarming and disquieting statistics, the politics of this disease have continued to prevent an adequate amount of research from being performed and have caused AIDS to become a “taboo” issue in our society. In reflection of these attitudes, the theme of World AIDS Day 2003 was, for the second consecutive year, “Stigma and Discrimination.” Because HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects individuals without political or financial clout, namely minority groups, users and/or partners of users of intravenous drugs, professional sex workers, individuals living in developing nations, etc., often AIDS education and research does not get the attention or funding it deserves.
Even in current AIDS research, there are biases that do not reflect all of the individuals affected by the disease. For example, even though scientists have acknowledged that clinical manifestations of HIV infection and AIDS in women differ significantly from those in men, little is known about why these differences exist. This is largely because AIDS research has been performed for the most part on men, despite the fact that African-American and Latina women have the highest percentage increase in incidence of AIDS cases in the United States.
Additionally, approximately 95 percent of individuals in the world who have HIV live in the developing world. Money-hungry drug companies are unlikely to jump at the prospect of spending their time and money developing a drug for a disease that is carried largely by people with no health insurance, no money and relatively low access to health-care systems. While antiretroviral treatments developed so far are used widely in high-income countries such as the United States, only 2 percent of the people in Africa who need the drugs have access to them. This is only one example of how the politics of this disease work: those who are most in need of treatment are most frequently those who are without it.
But the social issues surrounding AIDS run much deeper than just who gets the best (or even basic) medical treatment. Individuals around the world who have HIV/AIDS face discrimination in school, the workplace, public venues and even in their own doctor’s office. The negative attitude toward the disease can create a climate in which people are afraid to tell others that they have the disease for fear of the reaction they will receive.
Even attempts at educating children about AIDS have faced criticism from government officials and others in high-power positions. When the South African production of the popular children’s television show “Sesame Street” introduced an HIV-positive muppet last year, a group of U.S. legislators quickly fired off a letter to Public Broadcasting Services President Pat Mitchell. The letter expressed “concern” that introducing an HIV positive character would be “inappropriate” for the show’s two-to-four year-old viewers. These legislators issued this statement despite the fact that one in nine South Africans has the virus and thousands of children have been orphaned because of the disease. Kami, the HIV positive Sesame Street character, teaches children that people with HIV can lead a normal, happy life.
This letter, coincidentally written by members of the committee that has budgetary oversight of public broadcasting, prompted Mitchell to issue an immediate response stating that the character will not join the U.S. show and that no U.S. funding was given to the show in South Africa. The politics surrounding this case, much like those surrounding the broader issue of AIDS itself, have had detrimental effects on educating about AIDS and achieving equality for those who live with HIV/AIDS.
So, while setting aside one day a year to recognize one of the worst epidemics in the history of the world may seem like a great feat, the real question is what we will actually do the other 364 days of the year. For the millions of people around the world who live with HIV/AIDS, one day of recognition and fanfare from the rest of the world is simply not enough.
Kari Bellingham ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism.
