At Week's End; 417; Women with AIDS

sex education it's about it seems that a new Mexico in corrections about the best that we've been able to do has been to simply keep the lid on new Mexico's role in global events over the past two weeks we've been able to do has been to simply keep the lid on new Mexico's role in global simply keep you imagine if if AIDS would hit the yuppie population with the response from the country with the response from medical industries and politicians in this

country we've been would have been completely different AIDS the terrible plague of the 1980s is once again compelling our attention in New York City it is already the leading cause of death among women of child bearing age and in the US alone next year it will be the leading cause of death among women age 15 to 44 tonight a look at this terrible plague once the scourge largely of the gay community and how it is spreading to an ever-wider segment of our population specifically women but first this background report by Esther Reyes and Mary Kate Mendoza some of the myths about AIDS are that AIDS is happening to somebody else you know it's happening to those

people over there you know it's not happening here and that's the biggie because I think that that kind of denial it prevents people from changing their behavior that's one of the things that why adolescents are so at risk through sexual activity because you know AIDS isn't in New Mexico there's only a million people in New Mexico will Santa Fe has the sixth highest per capita rate of AIDS in the nation so you know it's definitely here and Ivy drug use is generational in New Mexico and New Mexico has the third highest teenage pregnancy rate in the nation so there's definitely sexually active teenagers in the state people are saying well I don't want my kids to know about it because if they don't know then they won't get it which is exactly the opposite of what the case really is I think we have to start teaching kids because kids are having sex young people are having sex maybe not kids and

they think that they're not going to get it and the the biggest fastest growing population of people that are getting AIDS are teenagers and women Ivy drug users are a fast growing population too but in general there's a lot more just middle-class women because of the stigma of it being a gay disease or a disease of somebody that's really promiscuous people just don't want to hear about it there's a difference between AIDS and HIV disease everybody that has AIDS has the HIV virus and that's really what's dangerous AIDS is just a compilation of certain diseases that you get when your HIV positive and your immune system breaks down so there are people that have had HIV virus for 12 and 13 years so you can think you're fine and and that's the thing you know there's only only about a hundred thousand cases of AIDS in this country but

there's probably ten times that amount of people who are HIV positive and don't even know it that's what's really scary because of the mechanics of love making you know the woman's the receptor it's like more breakdown of tissues occur and you know sperm is deposited inside of her and so infection is a lot she's a lot more risk and he's not as much at risk not that he's not at risk but women are dying undiagnosed they're getting sick they're ending up with you know an AIDS diagnosis you know when they could have been diagnosed HIV positive a long time ago if a doctor had thought to look for it it's gonna be a whole new massive effort to try and get testing clinical trials for women I think it's years and years away there's just so little available in terms of quote curing AIDS for anybody that I don't even know if I want to blame

make it make somebody a bad guy about that they're I think they're doing the best they can and because it started out in our in our society in men that's that they were testing but I hope they open up the trials to women because women and when I say drug trials I mean if I want to take an experimental drug I should be able to as a woman it's not just the impact on the woman but her whole family child care costs and if a woman gets sick and has AIDS then what happens to those kids if she dies if you make just enough money so that you can barely pay your rent and pay your bills you're probably not gonna qualify for Medicaid so I think somebody who's low income is really gonna be the most at risk because healthcare is not gonna be the priority the priority is a shelter in food AIDS education has to be about self-esteem because I know if I had more self-esteem I wouldn't have done some of the things I did in the first

place so it's not sex education it's about liking yourself and being able to say no to say yes to yourself and not doing things that put you at risk instead of arguing with some guy about whether I'm gonna go to bed with him if I liked myself more I might not have not had a argue I could have just walked away I definitely have purpose on this planet in meaning and value it makes it seem like there's not really any big deals you know I mean even AIDS isn't a big deal in a way it's like well I'm alive right now and that's a big deal and I'm really grateful joining me now are two distinguished women who are on the front line of this all-important battle Martha Trollen who was an age educator and health planner working with New Mexico AIDS Services and the New Mexico Association of

People Living with AIDS and Lorraine Kampa a registered nurse working with health care for the homeless specializing in AIDS education among prostitutes welcome to both of you this is a rather grim but all too necessary subject I have the feeling that we are witnessing here the the fulfillment an awful fulfillment of prophecy and warning which we were given repeatedly through the 1980s that this epidemic would not be confined to the gay community where it's already caused such havoc and suffering but that it would spread well beyond that into the heterosexual world particularly to young people and especially to women who are vulnerable some of these statistics are are shocking in the next two years over 500,000 new cases of AIDS expected of which 200,000 will be women as many in the next two years as we have seen in the entire past decade what's the what's the depth and breadth of the new severity of this epidemic well I mean also in New Mexico our numbers of justice startling

this year we will have 165 cases of AIDS now in terms of the whole country that seems very small but it took us eight years the first eight years of this epidemic to get our first 165 cases and now we will have 165 cases in one year we are doubling every two years and that will also mathematically to the exponential growth here which is which is bound to get worse in the 1990s is is there a public awareness of this problem it seems to me that that we have somehow fallen back exhausted we have been numbed by all the awful images of young men dying of AIDS over the last several years at a very moment when it's become even worse than it was in the 1980s we seem less conscious Lorraine well I think there's probably more of a public awareness than there used to be than there has been in the past New Mexico is not real high on the national level in regard to AIDS cases and I think that kind of

keeps people in a denial level they think that because New Mexico is is pretty low on the national level that there's not much that they have to do in regard to heterosexual activities people many people in New Mexico still see it as a homosexual disease I also like to say that there's a large population of teenagers that are very sexually active in the homeless clinic that I work in we see quite a few runaway teenagers and they're extremely sexually active and don't see it as a problem I think that's there's a lot of denial with the teenagers also but isn't that absolute folly I mean Santa Fe is is now the sixth highest per capita in the United States in the number of AIDS cases exceeds the rates in Los Angeles in Dallas in Washington DC we know that that teenagers we know that those who now have AIDS between the ages of 20 and

29 a large percentage 25 or 30% of those people developed the disease as teenagers you're talking about a phenomenon that is much broader than than HIV disease I mean you're talking about I mean this disease hasn't really in a sense changed things it's like putting a magnifying glass on the ills that already exist in our society so I mean people want to deny the death first of all we're a culture that's terrified of death so I'm not surprised that this is going on but people don't want to confront their fears of homosexuality they don't want to deal with with sexual issues they don't want to deal with race issues they don't want to deal with the fact that women are the poor in this country and the women therefore women die faster of AIDS because they get treatment later because they don't get treatment because they can't pay for it they are not involved in drug protocols because I think that scientists are

almost as reluctant to deal with women's issues as men are to put on condoms so I mean we're really and we're talking about race issues we're talking about the expendable populations in this country IV drug users I mean all of the people that this culture insanely wants to sweep under the rug because we don't want to deal with it the way we don't want to deal with talking to our children about sex it's all the same ill it's it's as much a problem of sociology and culture as it is of technology it isn't that we we don't perhaps have the medical means we have a problem here of will and of concern ultimately of compassion right of compassion and of acting of being proactive we don't do that in other areas of our culture either but isn't it likely to change if if our many of our straight daughters now not just our gay sons or gay friends but our but our straight daughters in a heterosexual

world begin to suffer an increasing fatality that we consider important but I mean it and that enrages me too I mean it's not important when it's gay people but it's important when it's straight people but also well I think the reality of what you just said is I think people have to start looking at the reality of who is being infected with the HIV virus not only the homosexuals are being infected it's also women who are our our daughters who are the straight women who are daughters and I don't think that people will start reacting to that until there's a large large number of women who are HIV positive and right now the the it's growing the the amount of HIV is growing in the in the female population in 1980 in 1990 in New Mexico there were 1,922 neonatles tested for maternal and that was for maternal antibodies and those

were from women between 25 and 44 years of age childbearing age and three of those tested positive which is pretty low for the national level but that was only out of 1,922 women that were tested I think there are special problems here aren't there in the in the treatment of women they get a later diagnosis often I've seen statistics here showing that many women with with AIDS die six months after a diagnosis which indicates that they've already got full-blown cases before they ever have seen in any kind of medical help at all so there's an awful problem here of recognition it seems to me of the difficulty we're not even giving people a chance there are absolutely no there's absolutely no research being done on how major research like the National Institute of Health or infectious disease and allergy on how HIV manifests in women there it there is no part of the of the list of diseases that will give you an AIDS

diagnosis that has anything to do with any of the genital complications and vaginal complications that have to do with women and AIDS there is one research project being done on AZT and pregnant women but it's about the baby it's not about the women they finally put enough pressure on the people at the National Institute of Health to make it on maternal health but and on the the babies but it's not on women's health and women are valued in this culture and as as people who bear children and as people who are partners to men so that this is the only place that we get either recognition or fear women are looked at in this epidemic in terms of whether they're going to infect men as you know our preoccupation with prostitution or whether they're going to infect babies but not for their own health and in in very real ways they're more vulnerable often as if two partners come together if the man is

the carrier the woman is the woman is more vulnerable what can we do to reverse this this awful trend we're literally condemning people to death here for reasons of gender and culture that have nothing at all to do with the basic values of this civilization I mean what can we do in New Mexico are we doing enough in New Mexico I gather there's there's a new bill and legislature for more funding and an anti-discrimination bill what what is to be done here well I mean in general there needs to be an enormous amount of education all through the country on all levels but specifically New Mexico aid services and and Southwest AIDS Committee and the New Mexico Association of people living with AIDS and AIDS wellness program up in Santa Fe there are a whole host of people who are doing lots of outreach into the communities to get people more aware of this disease but in in terms of of the legislature New Mexico really needs to be congratulated in terms of being a very proactive state we are according to certain folks in the federal government the rural model for AIDS care so with

with that said and all the padding on the back that needs to be done about that we are still very far from perfect and the bill that is now in the legislature which is Senate bill 29 which is Senator Mary Jane Garcia is introducing it this Monday in fact is going to be in front of the finance committee and this is a tight year with money but I was the associate on the HIV services planning grant for the last year and we planned out services for the next five years for New Mexico it was a federal grant and our requests were really the bottom line of what we need some people say it's naive to ask for what you really need you're always supposed to ask for twice as much but we did ask for what we really need we are asking for four hundred thousand dollars to expand and for reimbursement of outpatient clinics we have three main clinics but this money will also go to the rural clinics that are hardest hit we will have a full one

third of those new cases in New Mexico that I talked about will come from outside of the Santa Fe Albuquerque corridor and that is a rapidly growing statistic which which could will overwhelm are already overtaxed rural health system in this state so that four hundred thousand dollars and then and then we're asking for a hundred thousand dollars to go through university hospital for an HIV partnership after the year of planning we realized how helpful it was that we that we were able to form a consortium for the whole state in terms of being able to coordinate facilitate asset access all services that assess all services that go that go through the state it also makes you much more eligible for outside money we don't want to tax the state to the point can you tell me Martha how much does it cost to treat let's say an average woman a sufferer of AIDS and what's really available here in New Mexico in New

Mexico are average case without experimental drugs or without like AZT and stuff like that cost about twenty two thousand dollars a year and that is on the low national average the other the high end is about ninety eight thousand so we're really doing very well between twenty two and ninety eight and one of the reasons that we've done so well is because of all the proactive work that the legislature has been has been willing to do through money another piece is sixty thousand dollars to the AIDS Educational and Training Center to go out and and have roving teams it can deal with doctors and nurses in rural areas because this is a body of knowledge that you don't have unless you see this and then and then fifty thousand dollars to help with assisting people with AIDS getting on to programs and filling out that mountain of paper that happens when when you're sick and we're really getting to the to the rural areas in the

sense of of dramatizing there the problem there I mean I take it that that they've got their IV drug users they've got their prostitutes they've got a heterosexual transmission problem as well it's not just limited to to the larger cities well we have a we have a well educated health department we have a New Mexico Association of people living with AIDS branch in Las Cruces now we have a clinic now in Las Cruces Southwest AIDS Committee is also at doing education in the southern part of the state in Farmington there's a wonderful AIDS prevention program that is run by two wonderful women out there and and so there's a lot of education going on there but but nowhere near nowhere near what needs to happen we've got to educate the medical community as well as the general general population Lorraine what's the bottom line here is it is it really so much money or are we up against the old plague of discrimination and a prejudice in this society not only homophobia but but in this case sexism

and in New Mexico in particular a deep-seated cultural aversion to dealing with these problems to begin with well I think like you said the bottom line is is not money I think it's people needing to open up their minds open up their eyes to realize that it's not only a homosexual disease it's also a heterosexual disease I can I'd like to speak directly to the population that I work with and there's definitely a lot of discrimination with the women who work on the streets in Albuquerque 90 I'd say 95% of these women who work on the streets are there because they absolutely have to work there and for reasons of poverty for reasons of poverty and also because there's a very high incidence of IV drug abuse IV drug use and to back to back that up I I feel that there there is no backup in reference to treatment centers for people with IV drug use

right now there's a center in Carlsbad that works primarily with women and their children but alcoholism is the main problem they need to deal with but IV drug use is not used and in reference to what Diana said in her film IV drug use is generational here in the state of New Mexico yeah it's a catch 22 it's just a vicious cycle here many of these women who work on the streets are supporting their habit their children's habit and their mother's habit so it's it is multi-generational and this has never been looked at in the state of New Mexico and I don't know if anywhere else isn't there isn't there here an awful irony that as this disease spreads into the heterosexual population in a sense what's coming home to the to the straight world of New Mexico and the United States are the wages of our neglect is it were for for the less fortunate in society for the for the drug epidemic which has gone on for so long are our initial neglect of the AIDS outbreak because because it was

among a limited and and somewhat ostracized element of the population but but no longer now it's come into into every every living room every every bedroom of America middle class every ethnic group believe me Roger there was just as much denial in the gay community as there is in the heterosexual community and I think that that's part of how we deal as human beings what should be the main line of attack is is it prevention is it is it better treatment here it's all of those all of it it's research it's it's it's it's really creating health care system because we really don't have one in this country it's a tremendous amount of education and I and I would say that the bottom line also has a lot to do with money because all of this takes a tremendous amount of money but I'm telling you if we deal with some of these problems around HIV we will have dealt with a lot of problems in this culture that we've had to deal with for a long time and it's totally worth it I think education is is as utmost importance and for people to be willing to

listen to people with HIV who are infected with HIV and also who have the AIDS disease I hope that that our audience has been willing to listen to you to you've been quite wonderful and I'm in Curry just by by hearing what you have to say thank you so much Martha Trollen and thank you Lorraine Kampa join us next for a conversation with the architect of one of the current bills and the legislature dealing with AIDS Joining me now is Neil Isban who is president of the New Mexico Lesbian and gay political alliance and the architect of senate bill 91 a new anti-discrimination bill which has been introduced in the New Mexico legislature Neil tell me what this bill does and and how it's going to help mitigate some of the problems we were just discussing basically Rogers a very simple bill it's a bill amending the New Mexico Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on

sexual orientation in matters of employment housing public accommodations and credit and all it does is just insert those words that the bill already protects people from discrimination based on race color religion etc. And since we're talking about AIDS and the focus of this show has been AIDS AIDS is a public health issue but the public response to AIDS is a political issue and homophobia the irrational fear of homosexuality is a single most important reason why both the nation and governments across the the world have been slow to respond to AIDS will this bill really really help us in terms of public funding to fight this fight this awful plague it won't help in the matter of public funding that it will help in the matter of controlling the spread of AIDS and while the New Mexico legislature has done a remarkable job in recent years in responding to AIDS as a public health issue homophobia is undermining those public health initiatives it's undermining it in the sense that people who are gay and are in

denial of their own homosexuality or afraid of discrimination will not get themselves tested and will not get themselves treated proflactically and even more serious is the people who have no will to live I mean they've been told that they're evil they're sinful so they don't even care so this is you're saying that this is as much a social and cultural problem in 1991 as it is a medical and and public health challenge it's still years after we've already thought we dealt with this yes and if I can also talk on the other matters that this legislation would would help I mean the whole idea of discrimination in this nation is absurd we talk about liberty equality and justice for all but the history of this nation has been the history of one minority after another fighting for inclusion and acceptance and we've seen the costs of

discrimination in denying people opportunities and it's even more the self denial I mean the nation a nation that condones discrimination is depriving itself of the talents and abilities of those of us who are different very costly across the board across the board are just a few seconds left are you hopeful that that this is going to begin to turn around that this bill and other other acts will begin to reverse this trend yes because if I can if I can talk briefly about the incident of the two young men who are we have just a few seconds left just in as a general conclusion are you optimistic yes yes I am with with hate permeating society this type of legislation laws that establish principles of equality for gay men and lesbians do define ethical codes of conduct for the entire society well I'm happy to hear at least that thank you nil isman and thank you for watching us for it weeks and I'm Roger Morris

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