Twenty years with AIDS

Twenty years ago a small but deadly pneumonia epidemic began in Los Angeles. By June 5, 1981, five had been infected and two were dead. Doctors submitted a report to the Center for Disease Control.\nThe CDC published the report with an editorial note describing the condition as associated with immune dysfunction and sexual contact. After the publication, doctors across the country began submitting similar reports.\nEighteen months later, a team of CDC scientists discovered the root of the epidemic and dubbed it Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome: AIDS.\nThose isolated reports 20 years ago marked the beginning of a plague which, according to the CDC, has now consumed the lives of more than 400,000 Americans. \nWednesday is the Center for Disease Control's National HIV testing day. But HIV is not the only sexually transmitted infection on the rise. Planned Parenthood community specialist Kelly McBride said of 12 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections reported annually, 3 million are in teenagers, and two-thirds of new infections occur in people younger than 25. McBride said chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI), with 4 million new cases reported annually. McBride also said 1 in 5 people have herpes. But the Kaiser Family Foundation reports the majority of young people are more concerned about AIDS than a few years ago. According to the CDC there are about 40,000 new cases of HIV yearly. \nIU alumnus Mark Price found out he had HIV more than three years ago. By the time the tests came back, Price wasn't surprised at the outcome. Several of his former lovers had already been infected or died, and he said there was no other explanation for the combination of symptoms he was having.\nPrice then became an HIV educator. He met with students in the dorms, attended activist events and wrote about his experiences as a columnist in several local publications, including the IDS.\n"I make a bad activist because I don't always think the enemy is identifiable," Price wrote. "I hear wild implausible theories for the origin of AIDS, the transmission patterns data-mined out of clinical and hospital reports, the accusations of biological warfare and selective infection and, what do I know? I'm just a guy with AIDS."\nOrdinarily, Price takes four medications three times daily and sees his doctor four times each year, unless he has complications like shingles or skin problems that need tending. His appetite comes and goes, but aside from being slightly gaunt, Price doesn't appear much different from anyone else. After being diagnosed with HIV, he came back. \n"I try to think about it as little as I can in a personal way," Price said."To me it's not a very interesting topic in and of itself. I tend to think of it more in how it's changed the world I live in more than how it's changed me."\nRecently, Price gave up his column and his community educational activities to spend more with his garden and his dogs. Price said he gave up trying to educate the community after being embittered by his message falling on the deaf ears of unresponsive audiences.\n"It involves things people don't want to talk about," Price said. "It involves things people don't want to know. It tends to strike at the most personal part of someone's life."\nAccording to the Kaiser report, Americans are becoming more educated about HIV and AIDS, but more than half of Americans do not know that having another STI increases a person's risk of infection and one in five Americans think HIV can be transmitted by sharing a drinking glass.\nPositive Link, 333 E. Miller Drive, offers free, anonymous HIV testing and the IU Health Center offers confidential testing for $15. Planned Parenthood, 421 S. College Avenue and the Monroe County Health Department, 333 E. Miller Drive, offer testing for chlamydia, gonnorhea and syphilis and pregnancy.