From Deseret News archives:
Empty shoes make anti-AIDS statement
Caravans and local activists plan event today at S.L. library
Every day, 8,500 men, women and children die of AIDS somewhere in the world. But it's an epidemic that doesn't have to happen, says Ward, Utah coordinator of the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA). The campaign, which earlier this month launched 10 caravans across the United States, is hoping to drum up support in more 100 cities along the way.
Today, two of the caravans will stop in Salt Lake City, where local activists will host an afternoon and evening event. The Salt Lake Valley Health Department will provide free HIV testing from 2 to 5 p.m. There will be a rally at 6:30 p.m. featuring Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, State Sen. Scott McCoy, and caravan members. The backdrop will be those 8,500 pairs of shoes.
The shoes — men's, women's, children's and babies' — are being donated by local community-based organizations and individuals. Some are being brought from Boise, and several thousand are arriving from Reno, says Ward. The shoes will be re-donated after the Saturday event.
"AIDS affects every group, children, men and women," says Ward. "Despite the fact that we know better, we still think of it as a gay man's disease." In the southern United States, and in Africa, HIV and AIDS are mostly heterosexual diseases, with more women victims than men because the disease is more easily contracted by women, Ward says. On the East Coast of the United States, more injection drug users have the disease.
Prevention methods, some of them controversial, and more money spent for treatment can slow the spread of the disease, according to the C2EA campaign. That's the message that caravan activists hope to convey to local and national lawmakers.
Needle exchanges for drug addicts and condom education for teens, two of the most controversial prevention methods, have helped slow the spread of HIV and AIDS in Australian and New Zealand, according to Ward.
On the treatment front, the Campaign to End AIDS is focusing in part on state and federal funding of the Ryan White Act, which provides low-income AIDS victims with counseling, drugs and case management.
"If we catch it early enough and get them into treatment, people with HIV can live a long, healthy life. It's just another disease. But it's very expensive, because the drugs are new and experimental." Each year, Ward says, activists have to fight to get as much funding as the previous year, which means fewer people, and a smaller proportion of the total, are served.
Last July, Utah's Ryan White fund received a $180,000 one-time appropriation. Now the State Department of Health and the HIV/AIDS advocacy community is asking for $500,000 in on-going Ryan White funding, says Jodie Ponds, the department's HIV/AIDS treatment and care program manager.
"The crux of the argument is that if we don't get the money to fund the AIDS drugs assistance program, the people currently funded under that program will only be able to get funding once they are diagnosed with full-blown AIDS," Ward says. "The cost of care is much higher at that point, and the patients' health is much more likely to be compromised."
By Nov. 5, the C2EA caravans will converge on Washington, D.C. for "Five Days of Action to End AIDS." Events will include Capitol Hill lobbying, an interfaith prayer service and The March to End AIDS.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com
