NewsNight Minnesota; 3054; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 12/06/1995; SD-Base

Coming up in just minutes on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota a special report on AIDS in Uganda. It's a nation hit hard by the epidemic 10 percent of the population is infected with HIV. We'll see how people are facing death all around and surviving. Also talk about how what's happening there touches us in Minnesota. Also tonight problems for the new Harriet Tubman center for battered women in Minneapolis has some city officials want to cut the budget. It's all ahead. Stay with us. A. Tonight on NEWSNIGHT a special report on the effect of the AIDS epidemic on Uganda.

It's a nation hit especially hard by the disease. We'll look at how the population is coping and why Minnesotans should care. Also tonight the new Harriet Tubman center is supposed to protect women at risk but can it protect itself against the budget knife. That's just ahead on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota he's presented in part by Faye Graham Benson providing legal services to established emerging and growing businesses and by Norwest going to the nth degree to serve our community. Good evening. Glad you could be with us we have a very special report tonight but we'll start with some headlines. Ken Stone is standing by in THE NEWSROOM. Ken. Thanks Kathy. President Clinton vetoed the Republican budget bill today and there was the expected rhetoric from both sides. But talking to Senator Rod Grams today revealed something interesting. Graham has made a family tax cut a huge huge issue said he would trade the tax cut if he thought it was the only way to get a balanced budget.

You know we do have maybe some sacred cows but right now I say everything is on the table for negotiations. I'm going to fight hard to make sure the tax cut stays at two hundred forty five billion dollars. That's one of my goals to make sure we have the tax relief but I'm willing to put everything on the table and to try find what I think American people really want and that is a balanced budget in the next seven years. Graham's made his comments in a satellite interview with several Minnesota reporters I also asked him about that perk at the airport. If you missed the story Senator Graham's most congressional lawmakers and many business executives get free parking at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. I asked Graham's if he was embarrassed by the perk in many regards the taxpayer's benefit as much because you know we have expenses and that the government covers those expenses in one way or the other so if it comes in the form of paying for parking while we have to to be on business to Washington or back whether the taxpayers pick it up or whether it comes in another form. WCCO TV broke the story last week. They reported the one lawmaker who refused the

offer for free parking as Paul Wall St.. Yet another story about phone gate Minnesota Republicans apparently don't think a criminal conviction is enough. Yesterday today a fellow senators pleaded guilty in court to misusing the state's long distance phone system. Today Senate Republicans filed ethics complaints against the two lawmakers and the Republicans are also talking about an independent commission to investigate the Harriet Tubman center is the only battered women's shelter in Minneapolis and one of the oldest in the country. It's just moved into a brand new facility and it's not even had its official opening. That's scheduled for Monday. But there is already talk of budget cuts. NEWSNIGHT Harvin has more in the next year at least. Fourteen hundred women and children trying to escape potentially violent situations that home are expected to come here to the new Harriet Tubman facility in south Minneapolis. Usually some are turned away due to a lack of space. Now organizers warn more may be turned away at the door for lack of funds.

If you cut a program I mean what program to cut I don't know what someone's going to have to do lots of counseling to figure out which is the one that would have to go first which is effectively the least effective in the group. Would it be the way the advocacy of that tree I should Hennepin County Medical Center in the emergency room or should we pull the advocates out of the courts or should we reduce the staff here. So even though we've built this large building we don't have the staff to actually be able to open it up to as many as it could serve. Some city council members want to cut at least twenty seven thousand dollars from the shelters budget. They normally get about seventy seven thousand dollars a year so Council member Steve min is one of several calling themselves the fiscal moderate caucus. Should I write a personal check to tell me that I've been doing so for the last seven years. I believe in top but everybody not just I mean everybody is going to make a little bit of a contribution if you want to try to trim this budget a little bit further.

He is supported by council member Walt area the poorest of the poor live in Minneapolis and those homeowners who are scraping to get by Peter Jackson were trying to keep their taxes and a certain percentage increase. Without a doubt many APA city council members are walking a very thin line on this when they are dealing with taxes that upsets a lot of people. But they're also dealing with a sensitive issue a battered women's facility. Just what. City council member John Campbell suggests no cuts unless absolutely necessary. It's the traffic to and we contribute to a lot of non-profits as we are also having to face over the next several years cuts in federal funding for some of these programs and so the notion that we should prepare for that is a real one. But as long as we still have the funds to do that I would like to continue to contribute to. The projects and all those kinds of programs that really are out there helping real people in Minneapolis.

I'm Lou Harvey for Newsnight Minnesota. Council members are also talking about cutting city money for other social service agencies including the Minnesota AIDS Project. President Clinton today said that finding a cure and vaccine for AIDS is a top priority. He made that comment today at the White House Conference on AIDS which gathered AIDS experts and activists from around the country. One of them was Carlton Hogan. He is a researcher with the University of Minnesota and he joins us now from Washington. Carleton Can you hear me. Yeah I sure can. Evening thanks for joining us lesson. I was sort of surprised. We all know the arguments over funding for research and also about Medicare Medicaid. But I was surprised the Minnesota AIDS project is talking about one of the things I want the president to do is to emphasize and stress workplace HIV education. What's that about. Well I think one of the most important messages the president had today was one of inclusion that these are Americans with this disease and that it's not American to not help our sick and our persons

who are in trouble in our society. And I think where place education normalize HIV AIDS it makes the entire community aware that anybody is at risk and it's a way of reaching many people who messages otherwise targeted might not reach. I know one of the things that you would like to see is a real demonstration of personal commitment from the president to think leadership is needed on this issue did you get that sense today. Absolutely. There was a very strong sense of moral leadership. I would have liked to hear more specific policy but in terms of telling us he was there with us that this was a prime concern to him that he felt was a prime concern to all Americans. I think we got that. We got about a minute to go Carlton. We're taking a look at Minnesota what is the one thing that you see that scares you about age coming up in the next year or so. Medicaid cuts. I think that for all across the country that's one of the biggest concerns we do have some dedicated money for AIDS the Ryan White Care Act and other funds but they play for less than a fifth of AIDS care. And the president was very effective

in arguing that this is not just an AIDS issue whether it's senior citizens who need nursing home care families with spinal spinal bifida the entire range of things that can affect people. Medicaid has been there and has ended up cutting down costs and keeping people out of acute care situations. OK. Carlton thank you very much joining us from Washington. And we're going to throw back down to Cathy words here who has a lot more on AIDS. Many see that conference as a very positive side in moving toward action against the disease MacNeil-Lehrer medical correspondent Fred Stan last row has been following the developments and he joins us with a very special report. Thanks Kathy. We've seen numerous upbeat reports recently. Today it's a matter of fact. Breakthroughs in understanding AIDS and HIV of promising antiviral drugs that extend life and the quality of life for HIV positive people. However for the vast majority of those affected by AIDS people in developing countries like Africa or in Africa in particular anti-viral drugs are far out of reach and the only hope is for a

vaccine which is years away. Earlier this year I travelled with photographers Peter Browns combe and Tom Adair to Uganda one of the hardest hit nations but one trying aggressively to contain the devastation. Peace and the busy prosperity have returned to Uganda in recent years. To two decades of Idi Amin and Milton Obote dictators who murdered thousands. See with distant memory. However Uganda faces a new and much bigger threat today so widespread is infection with HIV the virus that causes AIDS that it both threatens the economic recovery and in some perverse ways actually drives it. Furniture makers for example say they can sell 10 times the number of coffins and the tables or desks they used to make and business will likely continue brisk. One in three pregnant women entering prenatal clinics in Kampala is HIV positive. About 1.4 million

Ugandans are infected with HIV. A stunning one tenth of the country's entire population. A half million people have already died of AIDS and there are more than that number of orphans. The impact is perhaps most starkly evident in the remote southwestern region of Iraq. It is fertile lush tranquil but untended social worker Fred. Last of all we are an agricultural area. We know we really need quite a lot of money to live up to be 14 but when we consider the amount over time that is busy is being spent in the grieving. The amount of time that is being spent on the barrios the amount of time that is being spent on to patient care and I think you know hospitals spend it well two years earning to take care of one person and that particular person is not going to survive by the time he dies the kids are here to stay.

Out of one hundred sixty five pupils in the school he to seven of them are French. Orphans are a preoccupation of the school principal uneasy Osaka. He's among a group of volunteers recruited by Fred Conti move as counselors to what are called Orphan House hopes. When you're national You were yarning New Jersey New Jersey jail is Kid Joe where he does not know her age. She remembers vaguely that when he was coming of age in this former British colony George was king. If we w ever quite that with Asia and I don't know well kasi if we've ever been right she says she has lost three sons I'm now three and four daughters never and I mean the book of what she says oregano that she had lost the other kids about to these owners who have died of this problem. I seven. 4. has three sons. Yeah and what about their spouses. When I get out you know I know about Ana. Well I think well cough. They

also died. Yeah. Who are dispirit seems is exceeded only by a sense of resignation and physical weakness. The children she says will soon have to think for themselves entirely. The oldest is 10 children don't talk or Newton. Says she has nothing to do it's have can give everything for Providence. Next stop and the sing grim story is farther along. There are no adults left in this home. 14 year old Lucy heads a household with five children. Their father died in 1991. That mother two years later the school principal suck it off for a little more than them. They are essential to still be it's about the only direct adult supervision the children receive if their programs don't use of the programs with the with the family of the clans. What sort of problems come up for

them then. For example does have a program of the food and the good program of home warfare for example so to Gondor when you're in the night to get some medicine. Sometime I can hear from two of them sleeping here that they're suffering from fever. So we've planned with the fun it is and get them some summits so neighbors sort of keep tabs on the children. Yes and what about emotional support of these children very affected me how do they get on get over the grieving process. Is there much of that. My wrong. It is overcrowded there are far more pragmatic concerns Sakae consults with the neighbor about reports of drunken behavior in the area at night. He's also managed to get most of these children into his

school with will be paid by foreign aid organizations. And only loosely cut Assad These worries are commensurate with her many adult duties not with those of a 14 year old who know what she'd like to get married someday but not until her siblings can live alone in the meanwhile she hopes to cultivate a better garden she says. So we can eat better food. There is enough food to prevent starvation if not now nutrition. A banana like staple called Matoaca grows in abundance here. The complex tradition of the extended family helps orphans through in this home. And look they are visited by surviving wives of a man who had eight and twenty two children. As is custom here he is buried just outside the home along with his first wife. So he had eight different quiet years in different places for eight and twenty two children today

and he died along with two of his wife and two of these movies. I don't know whether we have time. Today when we are fighting the fight. Norrin Kaleeba founded the AIDS service organization or Taso after her husband died of AIDS seven years ago. Taso offers counseling and testing and other services to some 30000 families in Uganda. Khalifa struggles with the reasons for the startling infection rate among those most often cited by experts are a high rate of other sexually transmitted diseases. Civil war and social upheaval all of which increased multiple partner sexual activity and all of which complicates polygamy which though not officially condoned has a long tradition in Uganda. I come from a polygamous family. My father lives. And the traditional polygamous setup. He's very protective. If you think about a man who has four

wives he's very busy and he really has no time to go outside that relationship. The polygamy the way it is practiced today rather than polygamy we're talking about a man having concubines. As we saw in the true sense of the word. That's not polygamy. That is a male. You might describe it as male promiscuity. Now. That is what is contributing to the problem. Uganda does get high marks for trying to find solutions. Unlike most nations in Africa it has readily acknowledged the AIDS epidemic and welcomed ideas to curb and thanks. There's been some unusual initiatives some would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. This door to door demonstration to introduce condoms to housewives is organized by the Islamic Medical Society and it is indeed for many an

introduction. The campaign has the blessings of religious leaders like Shaikh Ebrahim in Condi who is a cutie or priest joke when to teach adultery and fornication are against the teaching of Islam. But we have to acknowledge that these practices happen outside of the teachings we have no choice but to accept that these things happened and tried to prevent it. The UH UH UH to on the week. The information centers in Kampala offer confidential HIV testing along with counseling and what are called drama clubs. They are uniquely African from Arabic in a land where anti HIV drugs like AZT are virtually unheard of.

And with the progress from HIV infection to full blown AIDS happens in about half the time it does in western countries. If you are sick and then you lose you see. We see ice and drama acting. There are a visit by son of a disease which you as equal. Then somehow you know that you are not alone with other people. You see the problems of being a doctor going to St. John. This relieves you of his psychological then it too reduces the amount the stigma one person might have and. The. Dance music and drama are forms of existence. So some of the members would have yes or not. We give them plenty of body exercises as they landed us as the sea from the tides and then we take the music outside with other people. Dancers who are current regular road children past we've gone duck. Crack the audiences with drama and dance using the form to what is called the ABC. Your take

on that is abstinence. Be faithful. Condom use. There is evidence of some dividends of changing behavior patterns recent surveys show a slight dip in the infection rate. As for those already affected Labor says the challenge is to reinforce the idea of hope and purpose in their lives. If I can relieve another five years. During this five years my daughter Christine always. You never. Want to be 16. And she will be the much more capable than. That if I died today and left I'd want to live in Uganda. Openness and innovations have won kudos from public health experts but it is a measure of this nation's despair when people can hope only for more capable orphans and even more sobering measure of that despair is Uganda's life expectancy which is now the world's lowest at 37 years.

For this is such a grim story what have researchers learned about say the transmission of AIDS by looking at the Ugandan situation. There's a great deal of insights that that a number of researchers have gained from studying the epidemiology of this virus because it's as you may have been able to gather this is a predominantly heterosexual disease in Africa and that is something that we're not familiar with in the West where it's been a predominantly home a male disease essentially a male to male disease and there are number of insights in how this this virus is transmission is transmitted and and also the viral logy just understanding the virus itself. Africa's proven to be a real gold mine for a number of researchers trying to understand the behavior of this virus. So it's been very valuable. Have you also looked at survivors. There are a number of studies in Africa and elsewhere but in Africa the concentration of the disease allows for certain advantages scientifically but there are a number of

people clusters who have been who've been located of people who survive long term with the virus. A number of people who are exposed to the virus repeatedly but don't don't develop an infection or don't get infected that offers potential vaccine strategies if you can understand why these plain men for the most part their women resist the virus for example so. So yeah there have been some some very interesting insights again. Final question for you. Why should Minnesotans care about what's happening halfway around the world. Well aside from the obvious humanitarian concerns that everyone ought to have about it I mean we in self-interest ought to know that viruses and germs don't know international borders and don't respect them. And so it isn't of vital interest to understand what is happening over there because it can happen to us over here and beyond that the the wealth of scientific data that's available there and the innovation with which certain public health measures in a have been launched in countries like Uganda

very valuable information to be had there. Great interesting report. Thank you very much. Good to be here. Well we have time for us be to look at the weather tomorrow mostly sunny skies across the state of Minnesota with highs from the single digits in the northwest up to up positively Boni 30 in the bar cell. That's it for us. We'll be back again tomorrow. Really we will we hope you can join us then. Thank you. Just been watching NEWSNIGHT. Minnesota and we welcome you to December's pledge drive. You'll notice we're looking a bit different for your very special guest if you don't know where but we won't talk about that red green is with us and he'd like to say just a few words but I'm going to get the phone number and read

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