"ZERO!"

On the day after World AIDS Day and the First TGIF & Weekend of Our National HIV/AIDS Awareness Month I'd like to share with you what I Think, how I Feel and what I See happening as We the People attempt to Follow the National HIV/AIDS Strategy...
Michael Connett
Do you know how many HIV/AIDS Related ASO's, CBO's, Agencies, Programs with Outreach to the Various "Target Populations & Communities", Non-Profit & Charitable Organizations there are in Our "Greater Cincinnati" Tri-State Region!? No problem with Pink, Blue or whatever the Occassion Color... It seems no one Remembered the Significance of "World AIDS Day" Across the Nation and Around the Globe!?

There seems to be a Lack of that More Coordinated National Response to the HIV Epidemic in the United States... "World AIDS Day @ the World PEACE Bell" as an Event and Location was the Opportunity to Come OUT, Stand UP and Express Your Support for Getting Down to "ZERO" New Infections, Discrimination, Stigma on the Journey to an AIDS Free Generation... Thx for lettin me rant!

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Greetings from the South Bank HIVe!

World AIDS Day has a special place in the history of the AIDS pandemic. Since 1988 1st December has been a day bringing messages of compassion, hope, solidarity and understanding about AIDS to every country in the world, North and South, East and West. The theme for world AIDS day is: “Educate, Commemorate, Understand,”

Commemorate, Educate and Remember - 2003 World AIDS Day Observance
As of June 30 of this year, 2,113 Kentuckians are living with AIDS. An estimated 42 million people worldwide are living with AIDS. These people still need access to medical care, counseling, educational services and legal advice.
As of June 30 of this year, 1,835 Kentuckians had died of AIDS. It is the fifth leading cause of death for Americans ages 25-44. These people need to be remembered. In 2002, five million people worldwide acquired HIV. Half of those new infections occurred in people between the ages of 15 and 24. These people need to be educated.

“Commemorate, Educate and Remember,” is the theme for the 2003 World AIDS Day Observance. A special service, featuring the Northern Kentucky Children’s Choir, will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 30, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 16 E. Fourth St. in Covington. A reception will follow. The service is open to the community, and will involve a number of local organizations, including: AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati, AIDS Volunteers of Northern Kentucky, Faith Communities HIV/AIDS Outreach, GLBTS Interfaith Clergy Network, and the Northern Kentucky Health Department.
“The issues facing those of us who work with HIV/AIDS patients are changing,” said Clint Ibele, Health Educator with the Northern Kentucky Health Department. “People with the diseases are living longer, making HIV/AIDS more of a chronic disease. A 38-year-old male diagnosed today with HIV can expect to live within a few years of his normal life expectancy, as long as he follows a strict drug regimen and has no complications in his care. It may be 30 to 60 years before this man develops full-blown AIDS. In fact, it’s more likely that he will die of something other than AIDS.”
In a report issued in October, the Kentucky HIV/AIDS Advisory Council presented four issues to the Kentucky legislature for the upcoming session. Paul Trickel, Senior HIV/AIDS Case Manager, represents the Health Department on this committee. “Our number one agenda item is to convince the state to begin confidential reporting of HIV cases,” Trickel said. Currently, Kentucky law allows for anonymous reporting of HIV cases. Under this system, cases are identified only by a unique identifying number, consisting of the patient’s initials, date of birth and social security number. A confidential reporting system would use the person’s full name. Kentucky is one of only 12 states that does not use a confidential reporting system, and the state may lose federal funding if it does not move to a confidential reporting system.
“There are two reasons for moving to a confidential reporting system,” Trickel said. “First, it would allow us to provide more current and accurate data to determine the true extent of HIV/AIDS in Kentucky. Currently, the funding that Kentucky receives for medical, social and legal services is based on the number of AIDS cases (which are reported confidentially). The 2002 reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act recommends that funding for HIV/AIDS prevention, education and services be based on the number of HIV and AIDS cases reported by a state. If Kentucky does not change to reporting HIV cases confidentially, we may lose considerable amounts of federal funding.”
As a second issue, the HIV/AIDS Advisory Council recommended an increase in state funding for the Kentucky AIDS drug assistance program, in which individuals can receive HIV/AIDS medication at no cost, based on income. The program serves 700 people, but has a waiting list of about 160 patients. The state currently contributes $90,000 a year to the program, a rate that has not increased since 1996. The average cost for a patient’s medicine is $8,670 per year. “We realize that state budgets are tight right now,” said Gary E. Crum, District Director of Health, “But, for each $90,000 that the state contributes to the drug assistance program, 10 more Kentuckians could have access to medicines.” The commission also made recommendations on the issues of needle exchange programs and HIV/AIDS continuing education requirements for providers.


Local students are also doing their part to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS. In January, students at Simon Kenton High School in Independence will host a display of the National AIDS quilt at their school. The display will be open to the public from January 12-16.


The Northern Kentucky Health Department’s HIV/AIDS program provides case management and outreach services to residents of eight counties—Boone, Campbell, Carroll, Gallatin, Grant, Kenton, Owen and Pendelton. Case management services include: assessment, crisis counseling, service coordination and referrals and financial assistance with rent, medication and insurance. The outreach program targets at-risk groups, provides HIV testing, participates in advocacy groups, and provides professional education. For more information, please call 859.578.7660.  #30#
November 21, 2003: UNAIDS World AIDS Campaign 2002-2003



"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds along rocks."- Charlotte Bronte
"When dealing with people, let us remember we are not
dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with
creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices
and motivated by pride and vanity." – Dale Carnegie

Advocacy-Education-Support-Outreach-Prevention - The AESOP Initiative

“We need leaders everywhere to demonstrate that speaking up about HIV (which may result in) AIDS is a point of pride, not a source of shame. There must be no more sticking heads in the sand, no more embarrassment, no more hiding behind a veil of apathy. Leadership means respecting and upholding the human rights of all who are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS…” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan 2004 International AIDS Conference Opening Address

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December 1, 2002

AIDS Is Not a Death Sentence

By WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

Historians will look back on our time and see that our civilization spends many millions of dollars educating people about the scourge of H.I.V. and AIDS, which has already taken 25 million lives and could infect 100 million people over the next eight years. But what they will find not so civilized is our failure to treat 95 percent of people with the disease.
Given that medicine can turn AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic illness and reduce mother-to-child transmission, our withholding of treatment will appear to future historians as medieval, like bloodletting.
Consider that there are close to six million people in the developing world with AIDS who should be getting treatment but are not. That does not account for the 36 million people around the world whose infections will need treatment in the next few years. Worldwide, 14,000 people are becoming infected with H.I.V. each day, and the number of people with H.I.V. or AIDS will more than double by 2010. To compound the horror, millions of children are born into the world carrying H.I.V. Without treatment, they, too, will sicken and die — but not before watching their parents die, leaving them orphaned.
Confronted with these awful facts, we can offer the historians of the future our excuses: too many countries are still in denial about the scope of the problem and what has to be done about it; many countries lack the nationwide health infrastructure to treat such a disease; most countries don't have enough health-care personnel to run a complicated treatment program; the necessary drugs are expensive and unavailable to people in the poorest, hardest-hit countries.


But those facts only serve to outline the extent of the problem. They do not justify our failure to recognize the moral and practical imperatives to mount a full-throttle treatment program in conjunction with ongoing education and prevention efforts.
Some people argue that treatment is less important than prevention; a dollar spent on prevention, they say, goes further in slowing the spread of the disease than a dollar spent on treating someone who already has it. But this is a false choice. Prevention doesn't work unless large numbers of people agree to be tested. They won't agree to be tested if all they will learn is that they are going to die.
They should be tested, of course, to save others. But they want to save their own lives, too. If we focus on treatment in addition to prevention, several good things would result.
More people will stop suffering in silence and be willing to get tested for H.I.V. if we offer treatment that will prolong their lives and spare the lives of others. People who have the disease will live longer, healthier lives. This will make a big difference not only to them, but to businesses that will keep productive workers, governments that will spend less on caring for those with illnesses brought on by AIDS and children who won't become orphans.
Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of testing would be pregnant or new mothers, who can transmit H.I.V. to their babies in utero or through breast-feeding. If they test positive, they can receive new drugs that can reduce the chances of such transmissions by 50 percent and give life to a generation of children now in jeopardy. I know women will willingly undergo testing if it is accompanied by treatment. When I visited an AIDS clinic in Kigali, Rwanda in September, young women, many carrying infants, were literally lined up around the building waiting to be tested and, if necessary, treated with antiretroviral drugs.


And as more people are inspired to be tested, more will receive potentially life-saving education about AIDS transmission, regardless of their current health. With a new generation coming of age every few years, the need for AIDS education remains high, and no amount of mass marketing can match the power of one-on-one advice — the kind that can be provided by the trained professionals at clinics where AIDS testing and treatment occur. These professionals can tell patients how not to spread the disease, if they have it, and how not to get the disease, if they don't.
Through testing, we can also help end discrimination against people who acquire AIDS. This is in keeping with the theme of the 15th annual World AIDS Day, which is today: "Live and Let Live: Ending Stigma and Discrimination." The more that people understand that AIDS is not only a preventable disease but a treatable one, the less they will shun those who have it. And as more and more people are able to live with AIDS, their presence in families, workplaces and neighborhoods will help to reduce fears and misconceptions about the disease.


Can treatment work? It has in Brazil, where virtually all AIDS patients are given access to life-saving, generic drugs manufactured in that country. According to a Ford Foundation report, by integrating its treatment and prevention programs, Brazil has saved $422 million a year, in part because the number of people hospitalized with H.I.V. or AIDS has fallen 75 percent over the past five years. Brazil's death rate from AIDS and related illnesses is down 50 percent, and the infection rate is low and getting lower.
This success can be replicated across the globe. To promote the development of AIDS treatment programs in places where they are most needed, my foundation has begun signing agreements with developing nations, including Rwanda, Mozambique and the 15 states in the Caribbean Community. We are putting teams of expert volunteers in these countries to help governments and health-care institutions develop strategies to establish large-scale testing and treatment programs for their citizens.


These are small, grass-roots efforts. But if they succeed, they will save many lives and provide a model to the rest of the world. And the International AIDS Trust, which I lead with Nelson Mandela, is helping to mobilize the resources and leadership needed to focus on treatment and wage a real war on AIDS.
More must be done by governments, too, especially in answering the call of Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, for $10 billion to fight AIDS worldwide. Governments must also push pharmaceutical companies to make good on their commitments to provide drugs at discount prices or to stop trying to block the purchase of generic drugs by poor countries. Finally, they should also help developing countries to increase the supply of qualified health workers, because without them a treatment program is impossible.
A lot is at stake. AIDS kills people in their most productive years. As a result, businesses in places where workers are sick and dying are losing a lot of money. And countries with large populations of people suffering with AIDS risk becoming unstable and susceptible to the forces of lawlessness, famine, terror and the demagogic appeals of dictators. Once the disease reaches epidemic proportions, it is much more difficult for a poor country to stabilize its democracy, grow its economy or emerge as a responsible partner in the global community.
For all these reasons, we can and must do more to stop the spread of AIDS by doing more to treat people who already have it. Now that we have the medical capacity to save and improve the lives of millions of people, there is no other moral or practical choice. William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd president.
Copyright The New York Times Company
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I Never Expected To Live This Long...
As you know; this year World AIDS Day is the Sunday following Thanksgiving on December 1st, and we are now into the third decade of this global catastrophe. The focus on this years observance is the Stigma and Discrimination of HIV/AIDS. I recently taped an interview for a World AIDS Day program being produced to air on local cable outlets. Sitting here in the living room/office space of My South Bank HIVe, I looked into the camera after being asked my thoughts and replied: "I Never expected to Live This Long". I've been thinking about that ever since. I have been a Witness since the beginning and a survivor for the last eleven years. After I was tested and diagnosed in 1991, I began writing about my experiences and compiling them under the title: "Coming OUT of Hiding: A Retrospective Journey through AIDS..." .
The purpose and goal of this endeavor: To use the rest of my life the best I can so that the people and places through which my journey leads me will remain a little bit better for me having passed their way. The importance of telling such stories was recently addressed by a keynote address given by Mary Fisher during National AIDS Awareness Month (http://www.hivcouncil.org/mary_fisher.htm). To continue; I've been thinking a lot about that statement in my interview, looking back over my last eleven years and having a hard time coping with My Life with HIV. I finally seem to have emerged from this current Blue Spell and wanted to share these additional thoughts as well as begin compiling them on my web site.

Although we now know that the Virus doesn't discriminate against who it infects anymore, I think that the overriding point that SOCIETY still does is what the theme of Stigma and Discrimination was developed to address. It is that Stigma and Discrimination that continues to present obstacles to an infected persons "Quality of Life" and I fear that the current medical advances and increased longevity have come to sugar coat the reality of Life, and Living, with HIV/AIDS:

"U.S. Supreme Court decision: "Subsequent decisions have held that AIDS is protected as a handicap under law not only because of the physical limitations it imposes, but because the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the actual physical one.
This is the essence of discrimination - formulating opinions about others not based on their individual merits but rather on their membership in a group with assumed characteristics." from the movie "Philadelphia"

My friend Tex wrote: Hi! Michael, I know it's really none of my business, but what kind of problems are you having coping. Anything I can do to help?"
That is what this part of the story is about. I am very fond of Quotations; as Marlene Dietrich is now quoted as saying: "I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself".
For now though, just about everything I've written is contained in my web site or one of the many files that litter The HIVe and continues to be a "work in progress". My dream has always been that when I cease writing and have left this earth, it would be published and passed along to others making the same Journey. That's the goal that helps me get out of bed each morning. However, as I was looking back over it all and considering where I am now, I felt that it had all been in vain. Even though I seemed to be beating the deadline, I had failed to live up to my mission statement. Since WAD was instituted I've seen it go from a consciousness raising event to an occasion where everyone says "yes, well, it's all terribly sad, but..." "Don't Wait untill World Aids Day to do something about aids: do it now." Steve

He's right, of course, and that's what I've been trying to do, everyday with every breath I take. But as I said, "Somedays, Life in the HIVe's a Bitch!". That's why I still have to believe that World AIDS Day is important. Perhaps for no other reason than it does make Joe Public think about AIDS a little bit more than normal. However, the ultimate goal is to prevent HIV infections from occurring in the first place.


Many people speak of complacency now that HIV is treatable, and some even are
skeptical that further progress can be made in the United States.
HIV/AIDS is a disease at once amazingly virulent and shockingly new. Only a generation ago, it lay undetected. Yet in the past two decades, by the reckoning of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), about 65 million people have contracted the illness, and perhaps 25 million of them have already died. The affliction is almost invariably lethal: scientists do not consider a cure to be even on the horizon. For now, it looks as if AIDS could end up as the coming century's top infectious killer. We can't sit back and wait for a vaccine. Instead, we must renew HIV prevention in the United States.

"We must revive the passion with which the U.S. once faced the HIV epidemic, with a strong and pre-eminent focus on preventing the spread of the virus."

I'm doing the best I can, but it's not easy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I recently sent a note to Oprah suggesting that she do a story on: "Life, and Living, with HIV/AIDS in America" as a result of this article. As a witness from the beginning and a survivor for the last eleven years, I expressed my deep concern that the current medical advancements and increased longevity had only served to sugar-coat the reality doing a disservice to the public and actually impeding prevention efforts. This was brought home to me in the headlines, stories and events that are part of my experience.

I am very well aware that mine is a rather dark story that people do not want to hear, but I tell it to counter the sugar coating for the sake of prevention. I'm hoping that a heaping dose of my honest reality about "Life, and Living, with HIV/AIDS in America" - "that most of the time, it sucks... Big Time!" might succeed where the other side of the story hasn't.Thanks for allowing me to share my Journey with y'all.

Best Regards,
Michael 11/22/2002

"I used to be afraid of dying, but I'm not anymore.
I'm more afraid of what happens to the people who live..."
from "And The Band Played On"
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." George Orwell

Somedays, Life in The HIVe's a Bitch!!!
For the POZ CommUNITY At Large on The South Bank; a HIVe of support, education, information, abundant in shared experiences aglow with the warmth of acceptance for all who shall seek us out... WELCOME!!!


My Stories - 1991 thru 2002

All the Colors, in all the Flags and the Faces of All the Nations, Causes, Countries, Cities, Counties, Corporations, Denominations, Monarchies, Municipalities, Papacys, Religions, Republics, States, Territories can only be found in one place on the Globe...