At Week's End; 309; AIDS: The Need for Lifestyle Changes

... ... … oeffective o flakwyl gyda gwairaiddion, akw disheld darwch ena ddechiaid egg fydd fawr cael ddigement w lawtos. pobl gynti dddel yn dweuzbraethi rwysigau, hwn i roedd lle i dda'n meddwl'in ddynor activatef sydd y dri trwi funglo. Iawn ein ei y gullwę offo bruhueweg gyd challenged o gwneud tossib inclined wedyan lifestbraeth a Roor gydodadol yn yn d Avecro Roor · WT *** Hello, I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, AIDS acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a global dilemma, a disease for which there is presently no-known cure. And scientists say it may be years

before a safe-affective vaccine is developed. AIDS was once a disease set aside, Ym ma'n lîrtiat rydiuton, yn eiff recogn i pethau sy gachrin. Ceyazio minna IO es gyda'r gwneudfightau'r afraud i amneud ymwyrihu. Mae'r galdu sy'n gwneud y mudresig i chi حetau'i amneud. Reygmitt fishermenbudau yn 90 minna o'r gneud hyngabaid ac witnesses da'au'r mysgarasol, a 411 ar amlonahanidau adedd僕haudu o'r gwneud i chiydendolio ni pethauodd o, 305, and by the end of next year 500 New Mexicans may be diagnosed with AIDS, but that's only a small portion of the 12,000 possible carriers of the AIDS virus in this state. A recent survey of New Mexicans shows most people know something about the disease, but that less than half feel the need to practice safe sex. The State Health and Environmental Department says the problem now is not so much education as getting people to change their personal behavior.

We are joined by a university hospital's coordinator for HIV planning, Janet Voorhees, and a man who is living with AIDS, Don Schmidt. And Don, I believe I was told that you're a former director of the New Mexico AIDS Services. Welcome, this evening, and a question at the outset, Ms. Voorhees, why this reluctance to change our lifestyle and the pace of something so deadly as AIDS, particularly by people who presumably know the consequences of not doing so? I think there's still a great misperception among the public. Who is at risk for AIDS? We're all at risk for AIDS. It is not just a gay disease so that people who are needing to change their behavior means all of us, not just one group or another. Mr. Schmidt, would you agree with that analysis? Well, I would disagree in that behavior has not been changed. Gay men in this country have changed their behavior overwhelmingly as it has been pointed out by public health officials throughout the country.

You know, this virus, the AIDS is caused by a virus, HIV. And the virus does not take a survey related to sexual orientation before getting somebody. And this virus is sexually transmitted. It obviously came into this country through the gay men's community. And for all of those of us who are now living with AIDS and who have died of AIDS already, we got this virus long before anybody ever knew there was a virus that one should be taking precautions against. And now in the gay men's community, we have seen an enormous reduction in all sexually transmitted diseases where at the same time we're still seeing a rise in sexually transmitted diseases among heterosexual folks. And I think that straight people are basically saying, oh, it's mostly hitting gay folks, we don't have to worry about it, not really understanding that on average it takes eight and a half years between getting the virus and becoming ill. And so all these straight folks who have the virus, who will become ill in higher numbers, we're not going to start seeing people sick for many years to come. And it's a real hard thing to change behavior. Well, let me ask this before.

Do you see the obstacle then largely among heterosexuals, the lack of positive response to deal with AIDS, to prevent it? I don't have the information that's necessary to answer that question the way you'd like it to be answered. I think I see that the resistance among people to talk about sex and to talk about death and changing any kind of behavior having to do with those two subjects is one of the most difficult tasks we have as health educators. How much is that contributing then to the misinformation, the misperceptions that people have about this disease, how to prevent it? What's that thing? Misinformation. For example, on contracting AIDS. Well, there's a great effort in this state right now as there is nationally to do AIDS education, to aim it not just at people who are obviously at risk. Well, could you say how you don't get AIDS then? Maybe that is a starting point. Talk about that. People only get AIDS through intimate sexual, unprotected sexual contact through sharing of needles and from mothers who are infected with the virus

to their unborn babies. And I think that that message has gotten out. And I think that people throughout this country understand that you do not get AIDS through the air, through sharing a glass, through mosquitoes, through any other way, other than sexual, unprotected sexual activity and through sharing of needles and mothers to babies. However, what people don't haven't seemed to click to is that all people, straight gay, younger, older, are at risk. And people don't want to see that they're at risk. People would like to not have to modify behaviors that they're comfortable with. And so we know real clearly that education does not equal behavior change. And we need to put much more emphasis on ongoing support for communities and individuals within communities to live responsibly. And that's going to be an ongoing process. It's not a one shot. Educate the class and everything's taken care of. It doesn't work that way. Well, let me ask this, Ms. Voorhees. And then perhaps you can come in at two.

Are we being lured into a dangerous complacency by what we see published monthly in the papers in New Mexico about a low number of cases in the state? Are those figures deceptive when you consider we have a relatively small population? I saw some figures that indicate that New Mexico is in the top half among the 50 states for the incidence of AIDS. Not the number of cases, but the incidence in relation to the population. And what are you asking? If we are looking at those relatively low figures and thinking in relation to the high figures we see for California for New York that we don't really have a problem here. Sure. We're being lured into complacency. And again, to go back to what Don is saying, when it means that we have to change our behavior very drastically we're going to have people who say, well, it can happen to everybody else but me. And it really isn't a problem here in New Mexico. It is a problem here in New Mexico. Ask the 200 people who have been diagnosed here and ask the 12,000, as you said to begin with,

who are probably infected with a disease who are here in New Mexico now. Well, the November report showed that we are 21st among the 50 states in the incidence of AIDS in the state. The country, right? Or in this country, yes. That will continue. Dr. Junosborn, who is chair of the President, the National Commission on AIDS, was on McNiel Air last night and was talking about the fact that the first 100,000 cases of AIDS, full-blown AIDS, life-threatening illness because of this virus, came about over eight and a half years. The second 100,000 cases are expected to come about in the 18-month period following that. The third 100,000 cases will happen more quickly. Because when we talk about AIDS only, we're talking about the tip of the iceberg. We're talking about the further end of a long continuum of illness with this virus by the time a person shows symptoms. And so, no matter what happens, if we had a cure today, which we don't, if we had a vaccine today, which we don't,

we would still see many more hundreds of thousands of people go on to from HIV infection to full-blown AIDS over the course of years to come. This four-his is there a hotspot for AIDS in New Mexico? Is there any particular part of the state where the incidence is greater than other? Well, it's hard to say what the hotspot is exactly. Most of the services to care for AIDS people are located in Albuquerque. That system has grown sort of organically because of the University hospital from the beginning saying that they are interested in taking care of people with AIDS. There's a higher per capita incidence in Santa Fe and there are good medical services there, but the hub is right here. There also be a higher case load than we suspect out in rural areas. I understand that there are some people who have been diagnosed in other states who come back to New Mexico and thus are not counted here. Do you know anything about that? Yes, people are diagnosed in other states.

They come back here for a variety of reasons. One reason is that they may have family here. Another reason may be that we have a really great Medicaid AIDS waiver that is one of now six in the country. And you have a project at the University hospital now with a grant for that? Yes, that's not about services per se. It's about planning for services for the next five years. It's a federal grant. One of the reasons that it comes into existence is to remind people sort of as a second wave effort that AIDS has not gone away and that yes indeed we need to plan for services. We have only about a minute remaining. Lifestyle changes. What can be done? What must be done? Individuals have to understand that they are individually responsible for not getting this virus if they don't yet have it. If people have the virus, they are the ones that are going to have to take responsibility to assure that they get the best possible health care they can and not pass this virus on to others.

You know, we've often had this thing about if people, if we would just lock up everybody who has the virus that we solve the problem, the reality is we can't. We don't know who everyone is. You cannot tell I've had full blown AIDS for over two years, been infected with the virus for many years obviously, and have had symptoms for over four years. And people can't say by looking at me, oh he's got AIDS. I want to inform everybody that you cannot tell straight, gay, whatever, who your possible sexual partner is in terms of this virus and everyone must play safely, everyone must use condoms, everyone must limit number of different sexual partners. No one should shoot needles, but if they do, they better clean their needles and not share them with other people, that's all people can do. And public knowledge and public understanding on the part of those who are not in risk categories, I would assume would be a part of it. There are no risk categories anymore as the CDC has told us. Everyone is at risk. On that note, we will have to conclude it. Thank you very much, Ms. Voorhees, Mr. Schmidt, for being with us. Thank you. Next, Roger Morris and other Santa Fe journalists discuss the state of New Mexico's environment on Weeks Review. Good evening and welcome to Weeks Review.

I'm Roger Morris. From time to time on Weeks Review, we want to bring you New Mexico journalists for an in-depth conversation on extraordinary stories they've done over the past week or two weeks. Joining me this evening is one of those journalists, Keith Easthouse, a staff writer for the Santa Fe reporter, who's done an extraordinary two-part series on the Environmental Improvement Division in state government, what it does and doesn't do in terms of regulating pollution controls and other statutory requirements of the state. Keith, it's nothing less in many respects than a shocking story of neglect and negligence on the part of EID. Part one dealt with the Lee Acres case near Bloomfield in Farmington and northwestern part of the state. Part two deals with the key bureaus in EID, hazardous waste, groundwater and radiation licensing and registration. Your article points out that in many cases the state is years behind proper licensing and inspection and in the case of hazardous waste, 99% of those facilities

that should have been inspected and given permits have not been given proper treatment. Can you tell us about the story and how it developed? Well, I think the bottom line is that EID is not doing its job. It's not protecting the environment and it's not adequately protecting the public health. How the story began, we were contacted by a couple of people, a couple of ex-employees who said that things weren't as they should be at EID and indeed we found that they weren't. Part of the problem as you alluded to is tremendous backlogs and inspections. The 99% of the 7000 facilities that have not been inspected is only part of the story. There's also some 750 facilities that discharge liquid waste into the environment that have gone uninspected, unpermitted. EID simply doesn't know what's happening with those facilities.

In the Radiation Licensing Section, there are years behind uninspecting facilities that use radioactive materials. The other part of the problem is an unwillingness on the part of EID to get tough with polluters. The prime example of that is the Leakers situation where pollution was identified five years ago. The landfill up there at Leakers is run by the Federal Bureau of Land Management. Five years after the pollution has been identified, not only is there no cleanup, there are no plans for a cleanup. What's the explanation? Are we talking about bureaucratic inertia? Are we talking about underfunding? Or are we talking about a policy decision on the part of the Carothers Administration not to do the kind of policing that we can ordinarily expect? I think we're talking about all three. In the case of the backlog of inspections, it just seems to be simply a lack of manpower. We need more bodies over there.

State Representative Max Call told me that funding should be double what it is. They're getting currently nine million from the state. They simply don't have the bodies to cover the problems that they're supposed to be regulating. And the result is that there could be a lot of public health hazards out there. They simply don't know. But it's also a matter of deliberate policy choice. In cases like Lee Acres, it really seems to be initially when the pollution was identified at Lee Acres, EID was pretty tough with BLM. This was during the administration of Tony Anaya. They filed an administrative order. When BLM didn't act, they filed a lawsuit. Then the Carothers Administration came in. EID backed off the lawsuit and they went to a settlement agreement called a consent decree, which committed BLM to doing certain things, studying the pollution within a certain time frame, and then coming up with a cleanup plan. Well, they're still studying the pollution. The consent decree is more than two years old.

EID, according to the director, the current director, Richard Mitchell-Felts, and the former director, Michael Burkhart, they're not enforcing the consent decree. They backed off it and they're pursuing a strategy of cooperation, not confrontation, with BLM. I take it that we're talking, though, especially in terms of the radiation and hazardous waste problems and the groundwater, not only of the northwestern part of the state, but of businesses and installations all over New Mexico. That's right. This is not simply limited to one area or to one major metropolitan region in the state. We're talking about north, south, east, west, all corners of the state. That's right. Is it fair to say at the end of the third year of the Carothers Administration in the state house in Santa Fe that this is a governorship soft on polluters? I think it is fair to say that. One EID employee told me, and I think it's quoted in part two of my article, that I assume EID is grossly underfunded and understaffed, and I assume that that's how the powers that be wanted.

And that really does seem to be the case. No requests on the part of Carothers or his people for accelerated funding or for increased funding to take care of these programs. No, it's been pretty level. How about in the legislature? Have there been any champions of funding or of greater vigilance on the part of EID? Two. Max Call and Senator Roman Mays. Roman Mays, of course, has paid particular attention to the solid waste problem. Both representative Call and Senator Mays from Santa Fe County. Both from Santa Fe, yeah. But in my interviews with them, they're in the minority by a tremendous amount. They both told me that the legislature doesn't want a strong regulatory body. What an incredible paradox. We live in a state which seems to be very environmentally conscious. You've got all sorts of environmental lobbies and movements. A lot of citizen interest in this, in all regions of the state. And we have a legislature and a governor who don't seem to care all that much about the real problems. Well, I think the governor issued his midterm report in the summer of 1988.

And it discussed economic development, education, and other issues. Not a mention was made of environmental protection. And I think that's very significant. Can the governor and can the key members of the legislature be unaware of how far EID is behind, how negligent they've been in all these cases that you've exposed in the last two weeks? Well, I don't think so. I think there's a real sentiment in the legislature that economic development is by far the most important thing. And that environmental protection can get in the way of that. And you can argue that both ways. I think if you don't protect the environment, you're going to pay down the road. And overall, what you're talking about are statutes that are on the books. We're not talking about choices between economic development and new firms coming in. We're talking about laws that have been passed, state laws that have to be enforced now by EID. And about an agency which will be charged to monitor at least part of the compliance on WEP,

on the Waste Isolation Pilot Project. So the implication of all of this seems to be quite significant for the future. Is there any sense of reform building around this? I mean, you've uncovered nothing less than a major scandal in state governments. Any sense among the people you talk to of changes that are in the wind now because of this? Not that I've really been able to detect. What I did sense was a great deal of frustration on the part of a lot of people who work at EID. People who've worked there for several years who realize that they're not even coming close to doing the job that they should be doing. And there are no real movements within the legislature to improve things much with the exception of solid waste. But even there, we're just so terribly behind right now that they're just beginning. So we've got a watchdog in state government that not only doesn't bark but doesn't seem to have a very many teeth and nobody's interested in equipping him at this point. It doesn't appear so.

Is there, do you have any sense at all of why this story has gone on largely unreported by the rest of the media for the last two or three years? I mean, it reporters a small weekly newspaper in Santa Fe. We have a much larger media bulldogs in this state than your newspaper. Why hasn't this been big news in Albuquerque? That's a very good question. I don't know for sure. All I know is that when I was reporting this story, I couldn't believe the material I was finding. And it was just sitting there and it's been there for a long time. It's not like this problem just arose a few months ago. It's been there for years. I don't really know. Clearly the media hasn't been doing its job. And yet there are people inside state government who are willing to tell the story and blow the whistle. Keith Easthouse, thank you very much for your journalism and for joining us tonight. Thank you. If you wish to express your views about our program, please write us at Weeksend K-N-M-E-T-V,

1130 University Boulevard Northeast, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702. Next week is National Drunken Drug Driving Week. Next time at Weeksend, we'll discuss alcohol and substance abuse on our nation's highways and the problem of drunken drug driving in New Mexico. How safe is it to drive in our state? Our focus next week. Until then, I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend. I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702.

I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702. I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702. I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702. I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702. I'm Neil Boggs at Weeksend, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 8702.