Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 16:57:31 -0700 From: Jean Richter Subject: 10/1/99 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. WA: News editorial on new lesbian & gay PTSA 2. RI: Op-ed article on AIDS education ========================================================== Seattle Times, September 9, 1999 P. O. Box 70,Seattle,WA,98111 (Fax 206-382-6760 ) (E-MAIL: opinion@seatimes.com ) ( http://www.seattletimes.com ) Editorial: New PTSA for gays can strengthen schools Inspiration for the PTA arose from a conference for married mothers in 1897. It took only two years for the women to realize they should make fathers feel welcome, too. More than a century later, one particular group of people still feels [Deleted article. filemanager@qrd.org] ================================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 13:36:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "Tina M. Wood" Subject: RI: Op-Ed about AIDS education (fwd) This op-ed by Marc Paige ran in the Providence Journal on Sept 4, 1999. 9.4.99 00:10:30 Schools must join against AIDS RHODE ISLAND youths are returning to their schools after the summer recess. Although academic instruction will be their primary mission and concern, school committees, administrators and teachers should be taking seriously their responsibility to provide for the safety and welfare of all the young people in their charge, including their obligation for age-appropriate, comprehensive AIDS education. New HIV-inhibiting drugs with clear but limited successes, along with a fatigue born from nearly 20 years of this health crisis, have taken away the sense of urgency from AIDS. Although new treatments do offer some hope, the drugs are expensive, toxic, and have debilitating side-effects. Furthermore, AIDS still remains a disease with no cure. Despite this, more than 40,000 Americans will join the ranks of the HIV-positive this year. Rhode Island's schools have an important role to play in ongoing efforts to reduce this number. While Rhode Island law requires in-school HIV/AIDS education, some school systems take this mandate more seriously than others do. Given the universality of this health epidemic, no population should be ignored or overlooked regarding vital information on risk elimination and reduction. Testing has confirmed that more than 3,500 Rhode Islanders are infected with HIV, the virus that in its later stages is called AIDS and that ravages a person's immune system. More than 700 of the infected are under age 30, with many if not most of them infected in their teens and early 20s. When parents find communication about AIDS and sex difficult, schools gain an even greater importance as venues for young people to hear messages about HIV, as well as a host of other serious, though not as deadly, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). A number of studies show the vast majority of parents to be supportive of schools providing education on sex, AIDS and STDs. HIV is blind to race, gender or sexual orientation. The virus seeks only to invade new blood streams. When the blood of one individual is exposed to the infected blood, semen, or vaginal fluid of another individual during high-risk behavior such as unprotected vaginal or anal intercourse, or through needle sharing, HIV transmission can occur. Because it is behavior rather than individual characteristics that place a person at risk of HIV infection, all Rhode Island youth must feel included in the messages of health and safety. As a volunteer AIDS educator, I have occasionally observed biases in some AIDS prevention programs -- biases that have no place in a society that must be concerned with the well-being of all. Perhaps the most pervasive bias has been the reluctance on the part of some school-based AIDS prevention programs to reach the young gay male population. Nearly 30 percent of HIV-infected Rhode Island males, and more than 45 percent of the males with AIDS, were infected through sex with another man. All school-based AIDS education programs must speak to this often hidden population, as gay males constitute a disproportionately high number of Rhode Islanders infected with HIV. Other disproportionately high rates of HIV infection in Rhode Island are found among blacks and Hispanics. While their combined population accounts for about 10 percent of the population of our state, black and Hispanic men, women and children represent nearly 50 percent of Rhode Islanders with HIV. The high pool of HIV-positive people in Rhode Island minority communities cannot be ignored as educational programs seek to keep young people free from this deadly virus. One of the fastest growing populations with AIDS in Rhode Island is women with heterosexually acquired HIV. Currently, more than 25 percent of HIV-positive Rhode Islanders are female, and that number is climbing. School-based HIV prevention programs that do not address the rapidly growing population of Rhode Island females with AIDS through sex with a man (42 percent of females with AIDS) and injecting drugs (54 percent of females with AIDS) are not doing enough to reach girls and young women. About one-fourth of an estimated 12 million new cases of STDs reported each year in this country occur in young people, with two-thirds in people under 25. This by itself is alarming, but when considering that the presence of STDs facilitates more easily the transmission of HIV, the statistics become even more ominous. Patterns of risky behavior among young people must be prevented before they start. Comprehensive HIV education for each new generation of Rhode Islanders is an important tool to meet this goal. Discussions of correct and consistent condom use dramatically reducing the risk of HIV or other STD transmission is not inconsistent with also encouraging abstinence or delayed sexual activity until marriage, or a committed relationship (marriage is currently not an option for same-gender couples). Many young people experiment with sex by the time they finish high school, so any school-based prevention program with a message of abstinence without also discussing condoms is ineffective and, worse, irresponsible. Schools have an obligation to provide educational opportunities for all students, and to help prepare young people for healthy and productive lives. Any secondary schools avoiding discussions of sexual intercourse, homosexuality, bisexuality or condoms in the context of their HIV/AIDS prevention programs are guilty of favoring a conservative ideology over the fate of young lives. As our state's classrooms once again fill up with eager young minds, those adults with the tremendous responsibility of preparing young people for the realities of life have a moral obligation that their HIV/AIDS prevention programs address the needs of each and every student. In the war on AIDS, nobody is expendable. Marc Paige, of Cranston, is a longtime AIDS educator. ============================================================================== Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) These messages are archived by state on our information-loaded free web site: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/