NewsNight Minnesota; 6053; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 12/01/1998; SD-Base

Merrick Minnesota is a production of 23 year old from station Minnesota Public Television. Hi this is NEWSNIGHT on Kent St. Louis Hartman has the night off. Tonight we're going to spend most of the show with coverage of World AIDS Day in Minnesota the governor elect and his wife commemorated the day Lucille's kitchen hosted a teleconference on the subject with South Africa. And on NEWSNIGHT Fred to Sam last a row went to South Africa to see how they're dealing with the disease there. And finally a personal story. You're not going to want to miss. Newsnight has begun. Welcome to NEWSNIGHT Minnesota a statewide news and information program for thoughtful Minnesotans bringing context for the region's most important stories. NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible in part with support from the Blanton Foundation creating a stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities. The Nick Knight Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life for Minnesota families and by Cargill supporting Minnesota's tradition of community service.

Today is the day the world gets a progress report on the battle against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome commonly known as AIDS. World AIDS Day was observed all over Minnesota governor elect Jesse Ventura commemorate the day at the state capitol where he addressed an AIDS youth summit. When you look at the back half of our people when they vote. Today Also today the first lady to be Terry Ventura announced a statewide campaign to raise more than a million dollars to build a Minnesota AIDS memorial in Loring park. And in Duluth Tonight World AIDS Day is being observed Gloria day Lutheran church while a teen's only dance parties going on at the Northshore theater. And I stay right here in a moment we'll have more coverage from around the globe on World AIDS Day. Take a look at some other

headlines for Northwest Airlines. Six unions have now agreed to contracts flight dispatchers and planners became the latest to sign on. They have been working without a contract for the last two years. Also on the Northwest front the National Mediation Board will investigate whether there was wrongdoing during the campaign between the two unions battling to represent the airline machinist the International Association of Machinists who lost the vote claimed that the aircraft mechanics for eternal association or amp intimidated voters prior to the election. Campus says that it's sour grapes. And our last headline tonight a healing and prayer service was held today at the University of St. Thomas. The service attended by 60 to 70 students faculty and staff addressed the recent anti-Semitic and anti hispanic messages scrawled on a dorm bathroom. Some of the messages left over a two week period in October threatened a Hispanic janitor and a Jewish resident adviser on campus. St. Thomas student confessed the student was

suspended and faces expulsion. St. Paul police are considering charging the student under the state's hate crime law. Now onto the main topic of the evening increasingly there appear to be two worlds in the world of AIDS the west where the AIDS death toll has dropped sharply. And third world nations where it's climbing rapidly and where drugs to treat HIV are unaffordable. That's tonight we're going to bring you a conversation between those two worlds a citizens forum on AIDS from Lucille's kitchen in North Minneapolis and Johannesburg South Africa. First though we have a report on HIV in South Africa. It's by Newsnight spread to Sam last row. Dr. Glenda Gray began working with patients in this Soweto clinic near Johannesburg. Five years ago South Africa was on the verge of becoming a democratic nation. It was also on the verge of perhaps the most explosive outbreak of HIV in history.

In 1993 when I first started working in HIV the say a prevalence amongst pregnant women was 3 percent a couple of years later five years later we're looking at 20 percent HIV say a prevalence amongst pregnant women in insulators to half the people who get admitted each day in the medical ward to HIV positive one third of all our children in this hospital. Who get admitted I tell you so are we seeing at you no more than 3 million South Africans are positive for HIV the virus that leads to AIDS. It's about one of every seven citizens the number is headed up perhaps to one and more. It's not the highest on the continent but rising at a rate not seen elsewhere. We are facing a biological Holocaust. There's no two ways about it. Viola just sure says even though South Africa has the continent's most modern healthcare system its HIV problem went largely ignored its nation preoccupied with political and socio economic concerns as it moved from white minority rule to democracy.

It was not a priority. Jobs housing. Well it was where the product is. Maybe the only benefit of apartheid. Was that we didn't allow people to the north of us to come in to the country and we didn't allow might of the local indigenous population to travel north. And when the doors were opened you started getting people with HIV infection coming in to the country. Apartheid may have kept me at bay but it also left a legacy of mistrust. That's a huge handicap for a public health system in which most health care providers are white and most patients black. Mark Arkin Weller is an American physician with the charity Hope Worldwide. They don't trust authority figures. White South African doctors are not trusted by black South African migrant workers. So there's a lot of distrust perhaps misinformation in the past that misinformation has allowed HIV to flourish.

For example AIDS is still widely viewed as a disease of gay white males. In fact the vast majority of cases are heterosexual. Black South Africans more than half of them female. Many seemingly naive about their risk. You know I thought in my head that those Whereas those people who were sleeping around and noticed that I didn't think that I would get the virus. So it's painful. Like most young HIV infected women in Lorain Yeah Bonnie only learned she was HIV positive after becoming pregnant and seeking prenatal care. For most this discovery is only the start of their pain. According to nurse practitioner Jacob low so now they're good to me disclose this to either their husbands or their sexual partners and so they wouldn't have a problem because you know unfortunately we we still have a problem where we mean around in this country we still you know present women as another problem.

The women in wet clothes clinic are part of a study in which they are given the drug AZT team during pregnancy and also infant formula to substitute for breast feeding. That lowers the risk of HIV transmission to the babies but it increases the risk of social sanction for their mothers. If you feel like mine and your breasts but at the end of breastfeeding you know you're facing a lot of questions from the in-laws you know from your husband and even from the health workers and you why do you but it's really not that just unfair. In that situation. Flow says Women risk being thrown out in the street if they reveal their HIV status. Most are still able to conceal it since they haven't progressed to full blown AIDS. However on a broader scale public health workers say this appearance of normalcy has worked against them. People knew about AIDS they just knew about people who lose weight people to see people who can't do anything. But now if you bring somebody who's very healthy but has any

positives they still don't. And this is something we need to really work out. For the growing number of HIV cases beginning to show signs of disease. There are a few places of refuge. The Ark Ministries is one located in a converted railroad hostel. The coastal city of Durban. That's all we have here. You know which condition is in the museum now. As you can see these two are really from the arc has served those down on their luck for some years now. Age is the primary reason they come especially younger tenants. Many of them casualties of years of civil strife. Winnie Sabir says she became HIV infected as a result of being raped. She'd wandered into an area of the village that a rival group had declared off limits. It was very hard. Because I think to introduce a condom culture to my partners I decided

again to abstain myself from sex but due to the fact that I was under stress coping with HIV and the rape case it was hard for me to be alone so I tried to get a friend although I didn't open anything about my status. So they used to ask why I said we have to use a condom. I just saw. It about the bush. I didn't say that I was one of the carriers. So. So. I did continue doing this lovemaking but my conscience. Sabean has spent a year at the York Health has now stabilized although she's still been unable to find work. Still she's among the more fortunate. According to Pastor surely Pretorius the Ark's director.

There must be hundreds of thousands of people in the rural areas from AIDS related conditions but they never die because they just die in the family home and they're buried and that's it. So as I say we're not even touching the tip of the iceberg. No one's yet tallied the economic toll HIV AIDS will take on South Africa but the mining industry along the mainstay of the economy offers a sobering barometer. One out of every three miners already is HIV positive. And the mining companies say for every job that opens up in the next few years they'll need to train for workers. The rippling effect is a serious setback to government plans to improve the standard of living for this nation's an average black majority. As for the government's approach to HIV critics say it's been mired in scandal inefficiency and missed a rare opportunity in Africa to prevent the epidemic.

We should have been able to curtail it. We have a sophisticated media infrastructure we have a good public health system from the grassroots organizations that work together with political organizations and we should use the same strategy to combat HIV but the the countries in the NOL and no one seems to care. It's at at levels way where decisions are made about this. But Smart who heads the government's program says the epidemic is the result of a complex set of factors. We're a country in transition. We have a past which certainly laid the foundation for a fully fledged if. We have factors such as my. We had in parts of the country particularly. With the perfect. Conditions to an epidemic such as this one is that it's an epidemic that is few

factors like poverty destruction. Liking the tricksy. Lack of jobs those sorts of elements are common in South Africa despite the fact that many people see us as being a first well third world country for most of the population ready to third world country. Smart says South Africa should be able to provide basic health care to its AIDS patients. Although the country cannot afford the expensive anti-viral therapies available in the West. However Gayle Schultz runs a Salvation Army hospice for young HIV positive children. The public health system will be able to cope with the load. We're really really really good. It's not only part of the strategy at this facility is to enlist teenagers from local schools to care for the infant.

They are a mistake to teach them about HIV and Aids be a mystic to show them how they can live. Children. That see our main aim is to make them comfortable with thanks I mean it is that when they get it in their own place they're going to be able to deal with it instead of you know while rejecting the infix this it's going to take a generation to mobilize people for education for health or for jobs for a lot of redistribution of things in South Africa and unfortunately the AIDS epidemic we don't have that generation to wait. Whelan calls his patients the last generation. He says their predicament is a metaphor for a nation that hasn't yet fully come to grips with a grave health crisis. For me. In my. Time I'm not straight. I'm afraid. What do you think would happen. You know I think maybe one day it's just to do with him in. Your language

sometimes. Yes something about that. Then. I came because sometimes I just miss it. To. Me. Yeah version of Fred's report is scheduled to air tomorrow on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. The report was also seen this morning. Now South Africa may seem a world away from Minnesota when it comes to HIV and AIDS but in parts of the African-American community there are striking similarities in context if not the scope of the epidemic. And those were brought home this morning to the weekly Lucille's kitchen forum in North Minneapolis

which linked up by videophone with a group of citizens in Johannesburg. Here's a sampling of that discussion. AIDS is the leading cause of death among African-Americans between the age of 25 and 44. According to CDC estimates between 600 and 50000 and 900000 Americans are now living with HIV. With approximately two hundred forty thousand to three hundred twenty five thousand African-Americans living with HIV African-Americans account for 56 percent of all HIV cases reported in 1997 in 1997 the AIDS cases. Case rates were 100000 population were eighty three point seven. For African-Americans as compared to ten point four for whites in 1997 45 percent of the AIDS cases diagnosed were among African-Americans as compared to 33 percent among whites. African-Americans who represent 13 percent of the population account for

36 percent of the AIDS cases reported through December 1997. Right now the category that are going Americans are considered or included in is in the category with. Hispanic around Asian Pacific Islander Latino all of us are in one category called people of color. We need to be able to train more African-American people in our community and our community right now there's probably about. 15 soldiers in the fight against HIV that's a battle that we're fighting about about 15 of us live in huge numbers of HIV infection rate in the state of Minnesota in 1998. So far 42 percent of the new cases infections of HIV among black people. How much do we suffer here in America for lack of information lack of a true understanding about AIDS about how the virus is transmitted. But who is susceptible to it.

People are somewhat reluctant to come forward still because of the stigmatisation. This is still in the United States. Connect it with the gay community in terms of not wanting to be identified because I think it's something that that we would indicate that this individual was a gay person. I know that you had a situation of a white medical establishment and a black population in Minnesota in America. There is a white medical establishment and a black population that is adversely and overly represented in the AIDS epidemic. I want to ask our panelists here where does the question of race comment I think has to come you know I think that race issues is very important to find a majority that is down the scale in terms of economy. Let's there's real pain about it and say that AIDS is a social issue. It's good enough for people to have information but if you have information and it doesn't have anything to give to look up to then you find that people don't begin to see what do I do with this information. People are in

such dire straits that for them it's not to leave 10 years later it's for me to me to make a living today and what means are there for me to be able to survive for now for myself or my children supporting home. Safe states here in order to even meet me. Just. Like me you will die in real life. You know. This Thing. We do things as far as street outreach giving out condoms you know going to the school want to the neighborhood stores record stores anywhere downtown. Do you think our young people are getting the message or beginning to pay attention. We're slow. But. I'm with you. Yeah I'm saying I'm 21 but I still consider myself as a young young person you're saying youth is very. Eric Harris and I go to Franklin Middle School and I'm in the

Afrocentric educational academy program over there. And I want to know do you are stress Abstinence Teacher because there's a lot of young people right now that are so mean they're still virgins or whatever and that's one way that Chaves made is a sexually transmitted disease. And if you are stressed there maybe it would cut on everybody having AIDS or whatever because I know I'm one of them are sustained from having sex and I'm going to wait slag Amir and I will try. I just want to know that you are right there. Right. Right you are reporting on HIV and AIDS in South Africa it was made possible by a special grant from the Kaiser Family Foundation. It was part of a partnership we have with Hamlin university called making the global local project an international journalism that's funded by the Ford Foundation. Also the Lucille's kitchen discussion part of our the citizens forum partnership between NEWSNIGHT the Star Tribune

NPR and KMOV radio. Our project on HIV and AIDS will continue online. We invite you to point your browser to Katy CA dot org. OK when we put this show together we thought it important not only to show the horror of AIDS but the hope that still lives of regular viewers of NEWSNIGHT may recognize Dan Osborne now we've done several stories on him over the past two years. In 1986 he tested positive for the AIDS virus by 1903 he had developed a full blown case of AIDS and was preparing for his death. Instead thanks to the AIDS cocktail he's here in our studio. I saw you a year ago. Yeah. You had been at that point two years without the virus being detected in your body. There's tests now that they can and they called viral load tests and so they can measure the viral activity within your bloodstream. And it has come back. I just had another test. Yes I

just had another test from blood that was taken a couple weeks ago and that one once again came back under attack so that makes it three years that the AIDS virus has been undetected in your body. Frank Raymond the people who they call him the doctor often he's one of the leading researchers on AIDS says you're the poised poster boy for the AIDS cocktail. For him. I'm the first patient that he has had that will have remained. Undetectable for three years come January. He told me at my last visit. Talk to me a little bit about how complicated the cocktail is how many pills do you have to take how often. I take. Five pills in the morning three in midday and then another five in the evening. It's actually gotten a little bit less because I'm not on any prophylactic drugs any longer I'm just the anti-retroviral zx and a protease inhibitor. The challenge is that they have to be taken hours apart.

And they have to be taken on the empty stomach. So you have to schedule your. Eating around taking your pills and you can't. You literally can't mess with that. It is best if you don't. It's my understanding that. If you eat. With taking the pills it's going to interfere with absorption. There are certain things that you can eat. And there have been some publications that have given you and given me information and other people on these particular drugs that I'm on so that you can have a little snack or something like that. But to miss a dosage is just going to open up the window of opportunity for the virus to start to replicate. Or just change its nature and set you back another cost $20000 a year is that about right. I've never really been able to figure it out because I'm fortunate enough to be able to make a co-pay but I know it's well here that you know I have insurance. You

since become an AIDS buddy I understand. Yeah which is something that the Minnesota AIDS Project has put together right there. Talk a little bit about that with a miscellaneous project amongst its many programs has a body home helpers program. And just about a week or so ago I finished a training to become a map buddy. And what that will be doing is match me up with an HIV positive person who has through their case manager indicated that they would like to have a buddy someone that would be able to give them social and emotional and just some everyday support. We've got about a minute to go. We were hearing in the Lucille's kitchen conversation that people are saying the black community leaders. Have to get more involved in this epidemic. It was largely seen as a white gay disease for many years. Talk a little bit about what the gay community has done and the AIDS buddy system plan is just one example of that and what maybe lessons you can share.

Well I mean I understand that the Minnesota AIDS project itself was started by a small group of men. Which I believe all were gay. And this organization has grown into a very buyable a very important organization within the city. I believe that because of the aids up and an epidemic did first. Attack. Gay men. The gay population responded. And has. Really taken again themselves to do something and. Whether there was government support or support from other families outside. They realize that this is their friends their their families of choice were dying and they were just going to sit. Back and let it happen. Dan a pleasure to see you again. Thanks so much. Thank you. That is all the time that we have for tonight. Why don't we take a quick look at the weather the Newsnight forecast calls for and that this is our favorite phrase lately. Unseasonably warm temperatures Need we say more today an all time record for December. So I'm told. So we're going to leave you tonight

with the St. Paul of choir singing Silent Night by the way a happy belated birthday Mr. Spencer. Good night. Minnesota is made possible of Heart Foundation creating a

stronger Minnesota by bridging rural and urban communities. The McKnight foundation. Dedicated to. The quality of life for Minnesota families by Cargill supporting Minnesota's tradition of community service.