Posted on 06/06/2006 5:59:33 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Wyoming still struggling with AIDS 25 years later Two years ago, the state reported the largest number of newly diagnosed HIV and AIDS since 1997.
By Jennifer Frazer rep8@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - Twenty-five years ago, Pamela Reamer Williams was a reporter in Portland, Ore., when she first heard of a new and deadly disease.
Her colleague, Lars Larson, now a conservative radio show host, had a penchant for reading the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a short publication of the latest in the medical world.
It was through Larson that she learned of five young men in Los Angeles who, on June 5, 1981, became the first cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome to be published in a medical journal. Though the authors of the report did not realize the men had AIDS, those five men were just the tip of an iceberg that already was hundreds of thousands strong.
Reamer Williams, now executive director of the Wyoming AIDS Project, talked about this dubious anniversary at the HIV Prevention Leadership Summit in Dallas, which she is currently attending.
"We're all saying we do not want to be here 25 years from now," she said.
Whatever may happen then, the pattern of AIDS in Wyoming is changing now. After declining in the late 1990s, 2004 saw the largest number of newly diagnosed HIV and AIDS cases since 1997, and 2005 is on track to be slightly below 2004's figures. In Wyoming, 193 people were living with HIV as of June 2005, and since 1984, 117 have died.
Possibly fueled by injection users of methamphetamine, the number of new injection drug users who tested positive for HIV (seven) exceeded the number of men who have sex with men (three) for the first time last year.
Despite 25 years with the virus, people shouldn't count on a cure anytime soon, Reamer Williams said.
"It's a very crafty virus that I don't think we can count on researching our way out of," she said. "I think we really need to look at prevention and not cure for some time to come."
But both Reamer Williams and Rob Johnston, HIV/AIDS prevention coordinator for the Wyoming Department of Health, said there are challenges to prevention unique to Wyoming - from conservative communities that tacitly discourage people from coming out of the closet and/or sharing their status, to a reluctance to discuss uncomfortable issues related to sex and drugs.
Because many HIV and AIDS patients hesitate to share their status with the community, the community is deprived of the realization that it doesn't just happen to white gay men, Reamer Williams said. For example, among the people she has helped, she said, are the ex-wives of intravenous drug users.
But there is good news too. In many places around the world, prevention efforts started in 2001 have slowed, stabilized or decreased rates of infection. In Wyoming, Johnston says residents have better access to HIV treatment and care, and more counseling and testing are being done.
In the past year, the state Health Department has emphasized the importance of people learning their HIV status, but Johnston is not sure that their campaign is reaching the people most at risk. There may be hope for that as well.
Currently, the Wyoming Department of Health gets all of its prevention money from the federal government. Like many federal programs, this funding has been cut over the last three years.
But the Wyoming Legislature recently appropriated more state funds for hepatitis treatment and vaccination, Johnston said. Because several forms of hepatitis are common among the same groups that are more likely to contract HIV, he hopes the hepatitis effort will be a way to gain access to the people most at risk for HIV infection and help them to find out their HIV status and get care and treatment sooner.
No, really?
"We need a way to prevent AIDS"
"OK, don't have anal sex with men"
"...........I meant besides that".
1) Stop homosexual behavior.
2)Stop intravenous drug use.
Stop indiscriminate sex.
If you won't do these things, then at least quit whining about it. We have enough to do just trying to get rid of this Congress, who seems hell bent on killing us all!
Convince homosexuals not to have 'gay' sex, and drug users not to share needles, and you won't have to be!
Exsqueeze me?
Brokebutt Mountain
Oh we're not saying you need to stop running around in the cold snow in your bare feet, or eating raw pork, or dancing on rusty nails, or playing with rabid foaming at the mouth chipmunks.We just want to make sure you use a Kleenex when you blow your nose.
Had the CDC treated it like the plague instead of PC, the US would have far fewer cases. Carriers need to be printed on the front page of every newspaper and treated just like sexual predators. Like miz Reamer Williams says, it is a preventable disease.
Reamer Williams --
Is that the name of a gay porno actor?
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