“Red Lounge” tributes HIV/AIDS victims

Main Campus kicked off World AIDS Week and observed World AIDS Day – which raise awareness and celebrate achievements in the fight against HIV/AIDS – with the fourth-annual Red Lounge in the Student Center Underground Dec. 1.

Black and red tablecloths covered tables in the middle of the room, and a buffet table by the entrance offered attendees an assortment of food and beverages. Panels from the National AIDS Memorial Quilt were on display against the back wall of the Underground and served as a tribute to those lives lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

“It’s very moving and a very reflective experience,” Kate Schaeffer, coordinator for Judicial Affairs in Residential Life, said of the quilt.

Schaeffer was a part of the committee, which included Residential Life, Temple’s Health Education Awareness Resource Team and student workers, that sponsored the Red Lounge, as well as other activities for Temple’s World AIDS Week.

Schaeffer enjoyed the teamwork and administrative effort to raise awareness and support for the HIV/AIDS epidemic through events like Red Lounge.

“We as a community can use education and awareness about the disease itself and learn from the people living with it,” Schaeffer said. “We can use this event to approach [HIV/AIDS] as a reflective, educational and awareness celebration toward the movement and strides made to find a cure and make this something livable for the people dealing with it.”

The event consisted of student performances and guest speakers to commemorate World AIDS Day and raise awareness about the epidemic.

Arielle Catron, a senior women’s studies major, hosted Red Lounge. She said she was pleased with the turnout of the event, as well as the speakers and student performers.

“It was my first time performing, and it was the same for many other students, and it was a safe atmosphere to try something out,” Catron said.

Three Temple students performed Bhangra, a traditional Indian dance performed at festivals throughout the year, to commemorate the way HIV/AIDS affects India. Dana Blechman, a junior Spanish major, performed the song “3,000 Miles,” and dedicated the song to those suffering or affected by HIV/AIDS. Cody Kleppertknoop, a junior social work major, did an Irish step dance as tribute.

A group of female students known as “The Ladies of Elegance,” also step danced and shouted out facts and figures relating to HIV/AIDS, including “six in 10 African-American females in Philadelphia are infected with HIV,” and “in 2009, AIDS increased by 95 percent in the United States.”

The part of the event the audience paid special attention to was the two guest speakers, Patrick McGee, a close friend of HEART Program Director Dina Stonberg, and Temple class of 2000 alum and Stonberg’s former student, Danielle Parks, director of Women’s Anonymous Test Site.

“Even if you aren’t affected by HIV, you are still affected by it,” Parks said. “We’ve all got to realize this.”
McGee told the audience his story of how he contracted HIV in 1982, after being sexually assaulted at a fraternity party on his college campus.

“I’m in my 27th year of living with the virus, and I look damn good,” McGee said.

He then informed the audience of the importance of getting tested and that before that comes prevention and protection, which he says includes education and awareness and safe sexual practices.
“You need to educate yourselves about the subject because people never think it’s going to happened to them,” McGee told the audience. “Trust me, that’s what I thought, and I’ve lost 11 friends in six months to this disease.”

Joshua Fernandez can be reached at josh@temple.edu.

University dedicates first World AIDS Week

Several campus offices collaborated last week to kick off a new tradition of HIV/AIDS awareness.

In honor of World AIDS Day, student organizations on Main Campus dedicated a full week to HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention programs last week.

Temple’s first World AIDS Week started as an idea from Kate Schaffer, the coordinator of Judicial Affairs in the Office of University Housing and Residential Life, to bring sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to Main Campus.

Comprised of 3-by-6-foot sections created by friends, family and loved ones of AIDS victims, the quilt is the largest ongoing community art endeavor in the world and serves as a poignant memorial to a disease that has many faces and even more stories.

Schaeffer said several Temple organizations and departments participate in HIV/AIDS awareness programs year-round. It wasn’t until this year, however, that a unified week was organized, rather than a series of disconnected programs.

Temple’s AIDS Week began with the viewing of the quilt and was followed by free HIV testing, sponsored by HEART, the Health Education and Awareness Resource Team, as well as various HIV/AIDS awareness organizations from around the city.

As part of AIDS Week, HEART program director Dina Stonberg hosted “Know Your Status Jeopardy,” a game intended to stress the importance of knowing your HIV status as the first line of prevention. Earlier in the week, the names of people killed by AIDS were read in the Underground at the Howard Gittis Student Activities Center.

Since HIV/AIDS came to American consciousness, the coverage of the effects of the disease on the population has steadily fallen, although the rates of AIDS diagnosis started to fall between 1993 and 1998, since 2000 the rates have stayed constant. Considering the technological advances in medicine and research, however, the rates seem high to activists.

The life of HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS, is complex. HIV is a highly variable disease, and there can be many different strains even within a single infected person.

Every person reacts to the virus differently, and for some, survival stories could be out of reach.

Today, according to the Centers for Disease Control one in five of the 1 million people living with HIV in the United States is unaware of his or her status. HIV is a preventable disease.

Mamaye Mesfin can be reached at mamaye.mesfin@temple.edu.

HIV/AIDS ignorance is an epidemic in itself

The misconception that gays contract HIV/AIDS more often than heterosexuals still exists in today’s society, regardless of published statistics and research that clearly state that this is not the case.

As I watched a lanky student poke his nose around the rainbow of condoms sold at Temple’s Health Education Awareness Resource Team, I thought he, as a safe-sex practitioner, was probably a sensible guy – until he opened his mouth.

“Get tested? No,” I overheard him say to his friend waiting in line during HEART’s rapid HIV testing session last Friday. “I don’t have gay cancer.”

While there’s no such thing as “gay cancer,” I do believe that kid has another type of tumor: ignorance.
The act of sex – straight or gay – isn’t what “infects” people with AIDS; the HIV pathogen is.

“Pathogens are living organisms, and their purposes are to multiply and survive,” said Dr. Claire Haignere, an associate professor of public health. “They need a host to do that, and they don’t care about what the color, creed or sexual orientation is of the host.”

Haignere said it was purely coincidental that in the early 1980s, when AIDS first became noticed as an epidemic of a disease, that the first cases of what would become known as AIDS were identified in gay men.

“Not having a name for it or not knowing what the pathogen was, the media began calling it the gay plague,” Haignere said. “The fact of the matter is, it’s sort of a historical fluke in the United States because in the rest of the world, it’s known as a heterosexual disease.”

According to the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s HIV/AIDS Epidemiological Update, 51.1 percent of new diagnosed incidents of HIV in 2007 were contracted through heterosexual contact. Only 29.2 percent of diagnosed cases were contracted by men who have sex with men.

“I think the stigma has a lot to do with our overall views on sexuality in general in this country and in this city,” said Natasha Davis, an assistant professor of public health who has been working with HIV-positive people since the 1990s. “[In the early 1980s], the media did a good job of painting the picture of AIDS as young, white gay men. Even then, that definitely wasn’t the case.”

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that men who have sex with men account for 53 percent of people living in the U.S. with HIV/AIDS, it also reports high numbers among other demographics.

According to the CDC, blacks account for 51 percent of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in terms of race and ethnicity. Age-wise, 53 percent of new cases are in the 30- to 49-year-old age bracket.

“In terms of new-case rates, they’re highest among the people who don’t know much [about HIV/AIDS],” Haignere said. “The new incident rate is decreasing in men who have sex with men because [members of the] LGBT community are educating themselves.”

“Young people at Temple who don’t believe or know that this isn’t a gay disease and don’t think they’re at risk, they’re at the greatest risk,” Haignere said.

Regardless if you’re someone who actually thinks AIDS is a “gay cancer” or if you’ve been too busy finishing your capstone to care, one thing is for sure: HIV does not have a sexual orientation, and you’re dead wrong if you think otherwise.

“HIV and AIDS are not just in Africa or among men who have sex with men,” Haignere said. “It’s in the United States. It’s in Philadelphia. And it’s at Temple. And you can’t tell who has it.”

Maria Zankey can be reached at maria.zankey@temple.edu.

Testing for HIV is a must

With free HIV testing now available, not getting tested should not be an option.

Brand new this year from Temple’s Health Education and Awareness Resource Team, HEART, are free weekly AIDS tests for students. The testing is completely confidential, free of charge and performed conveniently on Main Campus at HEART’s headquarters on the lower level of Mitten Hall.

Just in time for AIDS Awareness Week, which ends Dec. 3, The Temple News is getting the word out to students about this beneficial new service. Previously, though, it seems most students have had misconceptions about the availability, locations and even the testing procedures.

In Philadelphia, there are at least 25 locations to receive confidential HIV testing. Although almost all are free (while those that aren’t are generally priced using a need-based sliding scale), about half the centers offering the tests are specialized toward a certain group – for example, the William Way Community Center, which is geared toward the LGBTQ community, offers free tests on Mondays. Similarly, the Woman’s Anonymous Testing Site, located at 12th and Chestnut streets, is gender-specific.

When people think of AIDS or HIV, some still envision the homosexual stereotype attached to the disease. In turn, those people probably feel that they have to go to a specialized center to get tested, which would cause embarrassment to those sensitive about personal choices. But we should all know HIV and AIDS aren’t diseases only homosexuals are exposed to.

“It’s sort of embarrassing,” said Reese Revak, a first-year graduate student with a major in piano accompaniment. “You don’t want to go and broadcast that you want to get tested for AIDS, even though you go to a nurse you don’t know and don’t see again.”

Revak said he was thinking about getting tested, but until learning about HEART’s new resource, he didn’t know where to find it.

“I wasn’t sure exactly where to go,” he said. “I didn’t know about HEART’s testing, but I knew they used to have it in the dorms sometimes. What if I went into Student Health Services and I asked about it and [found out] it’s the wrong place?”

Revak seems to speak for many students on the humiliation factor attached to HIV and AIDS testing. However, the other concern he voiced involving testing seems just as common as the former.

“A lot of times they do a blood test,” Revak said, “and I think that discourages some students.”

But Revak’s concern about the means by which testing is done is a mere misconception. As of 1997, the Oral Fluid Test began to be implemented in the world of HIV testing, replacing the longer process of blood testing, which had been used since the disease was discovered in the early 1980s.

The Oral Fluid Test is just as accurate as a blood test and takes less than 30 minutes to render results, compared to the one to two weeks of waiting involved after a blood test. Also, the OFT involves just a quick swab on the inside of the gums with a special device, which takes some oral fluids – not saliva – to look for antibodies to HIV, according to hivtest.org.

“Knowing it’s an oral test might be more encouraging to people if they’re freaked out by needles,” Revak said. “I didn’t even know there was an option other than a blood test.”

Now that campus has such a convenient facility for getting tested for AIDS and HIV, there’s no excuse for students not to do it, even when they may be almost completely sure they don’t have it. To use the most annoying, yet accurate, cliché I know: It’s better to be safe than sorry.

“The big thing is that when you have sex with someone and you don’t have a condom, the other person might be telling you they’re clean just to have sex with you,” Revak said. “There’s no level of trust sometimes. This test is free, and if you’re worried about the person finding out, it’s also confidential.”

Carlene Majorino can be reached at c.majorino@temple.edu.

Actors visit law lecture to illustrate gay issues

Angels in America cast members performed scenes concerning the 1980s AIDS epidemic.

Philadelphia theater company BCKSEET Productions traveled to a Temple law classroom from the Society Hill Playhouse last week to perform two scenes from the play Angels in America.

The drama by Tony Kushner, subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” follows a group of characters caught in the 1980s AIDS epidemic.

The performance offered students of the freshman-level GenEd course Law and American Society a closer look at the issues they’re studying. With more than 400 students, the university’s largest class filled Anderson Hall’s room 17 to watch the scenes.

The first scene showed the character of a powerful, closeted gay lawyer pleading with a colleague to accept a job with the justice system to get him out of a legal jam.

The following scene took place between the same lawyer and his new partner, centering on a confrontation the pair had about the lawyer’s involvement in law decisions that hurt gays and other groups, which escalated into a physical fight.

“I like how they’re all dramatic,” freshman biology major Carmen Taboada said. “It was a very interesting topic, actually.”

Taboada said she would like to see the full play.

“If I had the disposable income I would go see it,” said freshman accounting major Kadija Cole, who went on to comment on social issues raised in the play.

“I don’t like how they discriminate against gay people,” she said. “They’re not hurting anyone as far as I’m concerned.”

Students are working on a project in which they act as lawyers and take a stance on an issue, then write a brief and argue the case, Professor Samuel D. Hodge Jr. said.

“It’s a scenario that’s created, and we’re focusing on an area of the law called Equal Protection in the 14th Amendment,” the teaching assistant, law student Matthew Morley, added.

“There were a lot of things brought to the table that I really didn’t think about,” freshman political science major Julian Fowler said.

“I think that politics are personal, that laws have effects on individuals,” Andrew Borthwick-Leslie, director of Angels in America, said, relating the play to the law class. “Every time a law is passed or somebody is elected, somebody’s life is changed, and it’s very easy to forget the impact.”

BCKSEET Productions is the resident theater company of the Society Hill Playhouse’s Red Room at Eighth and Lombard streets. The play is showing now and will run through Nov. 28.

Thomas Driscoll can be reached at thomas.driscoll@temple.edu.

Art therapy spreads HIV/AIDS awareness

Haven Youth Center is the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a place where HIV-positive youth feel accepted.

Located on the second floor of an old warehouse, the center offers a private atmosphere for youth who drop in and out of the center.

Inside, Haven is alive in color and spirit. The strokes of brushes pick up a kind of rhythm, followed by the smell of paint. People gather around white walls that become colored by the flowing motion of a hand. One of the new things happening at Haven is the painting of an art mural painting to spread awareness of HIV to the youth.

What comes out of the art therapy project is self-evaluation, which allows the youths infected with HIV to accept themselves.

Art therapist Serena Saunders understands how art can be a great therapeutic tool in dealing with people that are alienated.

“Art is an internal expression and a good form of therapy that allows the youth to internally express their feelings, who they are,” Saunders said.

Haven steps up to provide support and services to the youth infected or affected by HIV. Many of the programs at the center provide HIV testing, support groups and an art therapy project. The project uses art to help youth express their feelings of isolation, depression and alienation in an otherwise stigmatized society.

Zoning out from the everyday struggles of life, the youth at Haven are very involved in painting the mural. The expressions on the kids’ faces when they come in are bright and optimistic.

“Having a visual color is nice to them, they can come in, turn the music on, grab a brush and physically get involved,” Saunders said.

Philadelphia is a city of murals, but what makes this one different from the rest is the awareness about HIV. Through meetings with the mural artist and teams, the mural represents people who are universally affected by the virus. Many of Haven’s youth come from hospitals in the Philadelphia region.

William Brawner, founder and executive director of Haven Youth Center, is an HIV/AIDS activist determined to spread the word about HIV.

“We make sure they take care of themselves as far as the disease is concern, but [our] biggest concern is to make sure they are productive citizens,” Brawner said.

As a person living with the virus, Brawner is familiar with the challenges young people go through. He maintains a strong, optimistic and healthy view for the kids at Haven.

The human interaction among the youth is a great sense of moral support and understanding, which helps them deal with their statuses.

Haven has a computer lab and college achievement programs to assist students with their academics. All the students’ achievements are acknowledged and put up on a wall.

The youth at Haven get a great sense of empowerment, as they gain security and feel optimistic about their futures. They learn how to live better lives physically and mentally and how to take care of their health.

“We just don’t focus on the disease,” Brawner said. “We track our kids, make sure they are doing better in schools, doing better with their doctors, doing better with their families, doing better with depression or whatever else they have going on.”

Sandra Rollins can be reached at sandra.rollins@temple.edu.

Researchers find possible source of HIV progression to AIDS

Temple researchers may have discovered the monocyte subset leading to the advancement of HIV to AIDS.

Monocytes, white cells in the bloodstream, help the immune system to fight against infections. Once monocytes leave circulation, they go into tissues, where they begin to differentiate into macrophases. Macrophases perform various jobs, including cleaning up debris in case of injury and containing immune stimulatory properties.

Just like monocytes, not all macrophases are the same, varying based on the environment they are in, and some of the factors that are secreted by infectious cells.

Within the HIV study, Temple researchers found a monocyte subset with two surface markers – CD+16, a cluster of differentiation that provides antibodies, and CD+163, an iron cluster containing molecules working towards protection from injury.

According to the March issue of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, this monoctye subset may be in direct correlation with the progression of HIV to AIDS.

“We looked at a single time point in patients, and we saw that this correlation exists,” said Dr. Jay Rappaport, one of the three researchers who oversaw the study.

Rappaport said when the HIV viral load increases, so does the subset of monoctyes.

“The higher the viral load, the higher the fraction of this subset becomes,” he said. “It becomes more predominant.”

As the monocyte subset begins to increase, a person begins to lose their CD+4 T-cells. CD+4 T-cells are crucial in helping to maintain the immune system.

“The lower the CD+4 count, the higher the fraction of these cells becomes,” Rappaport said.

The study, authored by Dr. Tracy Fischer-Smith of Temple, first began with a group of monkeys containing the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, the primate version of AIDS. From there, 25 patients from Temple’s Comprehensive HIV program – 18 of them with the virus and seven without – were chosen at random by Dr. Ellen Tedaldi.

“In order to see if this predicts the rate of production to disease, the next step would be to do a longitudinal study and to follow those patients overtime,” Rapport said. “We think that it could be something that could allow you to forecast the progression of the disease. Right now, there’s very little out there that can do that.”

With the use of microarray technology, the longitudinal study will examine the gene expression profile cells, and how they function in the context of the immune system. This information could prove that the more monocytes a person has, the more prone they are to the HIV progression to AIDS.

Temple’s Office of the Provost has awarded Dr. Ellen Tedaldi with a seed grant to further explore the study of patients with HIV. The research study will include a five-faculty member staff led by Dr. Trisha Acri, covering up to one-year of research.

Kylee Messner can be reached at kylee.messner@temple.edu.

Image courtesy of Nature.com

HIV speaker creates awareness

Editor’s Note: The speaker’s name in this article has been changed to protect his identity.

Twenty-five years ago, John Smith went to a frat party not knowing it would change his life.

Three guys attacked and raped him while he was drunk. That night was the last night Smith ever drank alcohol. It was also the night he became HIV positive.

For the past six years he has been traveling to inform people about HIV and AIDS using his own experiences. His goal is to educate people the proper way and to combat the wrong information that people receive from the media. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, the Temple Health Empowerment Office and the Honors Program welcomed Smith to tell his story.

“What I say today is very close to my heart,” Smith said, standing before 35 people in the 1300 residence hall classroom. “I have AIDS.”

Smith has lived with HIV for 25 years. When he tested positive, his doctor told him he had about two years to live. He did not receive treatment when he was first diagnosed; instead he decided to do all the things he always wanted.

He ended up with $30,000 worth of credit card debt but was still alive. In 1995, he reached his low in health. A healthy person usually has a T-cell count of 1000; in 1995 Smith’s T-cell count was 33. That year the “cocktail,” a combination of various drugs, appeared as a solution to fighting HIV and AIDS. Smith was put on this treatment and his health began to improve.

Now his T-cell count is 833. He considers himself to be one of the lucky ones. He never had an opportunistic infection, and even when his T-cell count was low, his immune system still continued to function.

“We are not here to judge other people of the choices they make,” Smith said he passed out bags of candy.

The candy game was an exercise Smith used to illustrate his point about people and choices. He passed out two bags of candy and instructed students to pick at least one piece, but we could have as much as we wanted. Different candies meant different things, but we did not find out the meanings until after we made our choices.

Sugarless gum stood for sex with condoms, while a Twix bar stood for prostitution. Fast Breaks represented intravenous drugs, while Snickers symbolized watching people have sex and laughing. The point of the exercise was to illustrate that people should never judge others and their choices. The game also showed Smith’s sense of humor and boldness.

“I’ll make you laugh and compare it to things you’ll remember,” Smith said as he explained how the HIV virus works and how it is transmitted.

Smith stressed the point that HIV is a preventable illness. He discussed the four bodily fluids that transmit the disease: blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk. He also explained in layman’s terms how the virus infects the body and eventually takes over. He said he’s satisfied if everyone walks out of the lecture knowing at least the four bodily fluids of transmission.

“If I could do it over I would have skipped the frat party,” Smith said. “I would never choose to have AIDS, but if I didn’t have it I wouldn’t be doing what I do and I think what I do is important.”

Smith has given many lectures and has volunteered at different HIV testing sites as well as different HIV and AIDS conferences. He is more blunt and open than most traditional speakers, but he manages to get his point across especially with college students. After the lecture, many students went up to him and personally thanked him for coming and speaking.

THEO and the Honors Program held this event in order to bring about awareness to safe sex practices and HIV prevention.

“Students are bombarded with health information,” said THEO coordinator Dina Stonberg. “I think his programs really make a difference.”

Temple is now on the forefront of HIV and AIDS awareness. Temple is one of the first colleges in the country to now have rapid HIV testing, which means that after getting tested, students can get results in 20-40 minutes for free. THEO also holds a class in January called AIDS in Society, which is also rare for most colleges.

“The whole idea was putting a real face to the disease that isn’t typically seen in the media,” said Amanda Neuber, an Honors academic advisor. “What I wanted people to realize is that there are people living with HIV on campus that you would have never have thought had anything wrong with them.”

Rebecca Hale can be reached at rebecca.hale@temple.edu.