Where did AIDS go?

Don Francis, an HIV vaccine researcher, reminds us, "On Sept. 11, we tragically lost 2,800 people in the World Trade Center. That day, 8,000 people died of AIDS. And the day before that, and the day after and every day since." In the past six months, AIDS killed enough people to empty Seattle of all its residents. Twice.

Yet, what do we hear about AIDS nowadays? Where did HIV go? The epidemic is largely silent, out of view of the public eye, except for an occasional newspaper article about vaccine advancements or AIDS orphans in Africa, or the sporadic celebrity publicity stunt or marketing endeavor (the new Gap Red promotion, for instance, is laudable, but is also sure to benefit Gap as much as it benefits AIDS campaigns in Africa).

Even as the media are hushed on the topic, the epidemic continues to grow, among men who have sex with men, injection drug users, young women of color and people in the developing world especially. They are becoming infected — and dying, even given the success of antiretroviral therapies — at alarming rates. Why don't we hear about AIDS anymore?

Maybe it's precisely because of who is dying of the disease. Mother-to-child transmission of HIV, at least in the United States and Europe, is a thing of the past. There are no more Ryan Whites, either, innocently infected by blood transfusions. Those people who get HIV now have to do something to get it. Those "somethings," thosae "risk behaviors," just happen to be precisely those topics that we don't like to talk about in American society and press. Sex? Drugs? We can hardly bear to mention these words to our children (and it's only getting worse with abstinence-only education). Homosexuality? Forget about it.

We don't hear about AIDS because AIDS is unsightly. It infects gay men. The incarcerated. Drug addicts. The poor. Prostitutes. People of color. Africans.

Those old demons — racism, xenophobia, sexism and homophobia –— continue to haunt us, and they're affecting our health when it comes to HIV. Unfortunately, what we don't know — or choose to sweep under the rug — can be deadly. A recent research study reported that among young women, more than half of those women who felt they had absolutely no risk of contracting HIV had engaged in at least one risky practice during the preceding year and more than 25 percent had engaged in at least two risky behaviors.

How can we possibly start to think about stopping the epidemic if we don't know anything about it?

There is no HIV vaccine on the horizon. There is no "magic bullet" to stop AIDS. Our only chance is to change our own attitudes about the disease.

Africa is teetering on the edge of economic collapse. Methamphetamine use, syphilis and HIV are on the rise again in the gay male community. Black women ages 19-24 are getting infected faster than any other population. HIV rates in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco are higher than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. They are in trouble.

But AIDS is not a question of some faraway or foreign evil. HIV isn't a virus that distinguishes "them" from "us." Perhaps that is the most powerful prevention message we can promote: People like me get HIV. I am at risk of getting HIV. You are at risk of getting HIV.

Unless we speak up about it — and demand that the media do as well — we are all in terrible peril.

Anna Talman

Graduate student, public health

President or CEO?

Last Monday's front-page story "Emmert's salary third highest" illustrates a disconcerting trend in higher education: Universities are looking a lot more like Fortune 500 companies and a lot less like universities. Big-time salary contracts and sweet on-the-job perks are something you would expect from a company CEO, not a college president.

But the job of the college president shouldn't be boosting the bottom line, keeping investors (or "donors" — or whatever you want to call them) happy and polishing the school's reputation (or "brand name"). Unfortunately, this is the unquestioned reality that jeopardizes the quality of our educational system. Ask any university official in the country why college presidents are paid so much and the answer is the same: to stay competitive in the marketplace.

Competition? With whom? For what?

Sounds like business school jargon to me.

Brian Turner

UW Alum, journalism, 2004

Don't take America for granted

I would like to thank Brandon Dennis for his article "The right to be loyal" in the Nov. 27 edition of The Daily. He was right on the money. There seems to be this ever-increasing wave of anti-American sentiments coming from the heart of America itself.

It is frightening to see our country heading in this direction. I dread the day that people like Jason Ball propose a ban on singing "The Star Spangled Banner" at sporting events and on other similar actions, actions we take for granted.

I love America. I love the fact that I can say the Pledge of Allegiance, sing "The Star Spangled Banner" out of tune with 50,000 other Americans and write this letter in response to somebody else's opinion without being prosecuted.

I encourage people to ask themselves if they really have it that bad. Where else would you rather live? And if you would rather live somewhere else, why aren't you living there?

Daniel Zietzke

Junior, College of Engineering

Organ donation campaign exploits teens

There is a need for "donated" organs, however what's to say that this drive to get teenagers to divest themselves of their organs isn't just more of the same pressure that is put on them by other special interests, interests that know teens are not fully mature and that they lack the experience to make truly informed decisions about their lives?

This looks like just another scheme to divest teens of one more facet of their personhood. It all sounds so altruistic and high-minded, it's part of that self-less, self-sacrificing paradigm that we are all supposed to aspire to.

However, how is it any more right to put the bite on teenagers to donate their organs than it is to descend upon them and pressure them to join our armed forces? Aren't teenagers also the main targets of retail corporations and entertainment conglomerates?

"Give me your organs!" and "Give me your life." "Spend money; buy this!" "You need my entertainment!" Unsuspecting teenagers who think they pretty much know everything willingly comply with these demands.

I'm not saying ix-nay on the drive for more organs, but let's put it into perspective. This is a good example of a more vulnerable segment of society being targeted and asked to sacrifice something of itself, being told that it is for some "greater good," but essentially it is for the benefit of a discrete segment of society.

If I needed an organ I'd do the same thing I'm just asking that we be honest about it and put it into its proper perspective; it is exploitation.

Elizabeth Campbell

Senior, Law, Societies and Justice; sociology; history