The
other day, I was flipping around the channels and found "And the Band Played
On."
I had seen this
movie before. It was produced in the early 1990s, using a huge cast of
major stars, many of whom donated their time to the project. Matthew Modine,
Lily Tomlin, Steve Martin, Phil Collins, Alan Alda, Ian McKellen, Richard
Gere... Ever hear of these people?
It affected me
powerfully in college, and we showed it one night at my apartment. We had
all grown up with AIDS, you see - it was a major part of the just-say-no
that passed for sex education in our public schools - at least, in the
few public schools that actually HAD sex ed. We all knew about AIDS, we
knew it could kill you, you might not know you had it, but if you do it
with a condom you're probably okay.
That movie changed
all that. Suddenly we knew what AIDS really was, and how it killed you,
and that it didn't have to get as big as it did. The latter part will always
be a debate, I know - you might ask how many angels can dance on the head
of a pin. But watching these people dying with sarcoma splotches all over
their bodies made a real impact. That night in my apartment, even the slightly
homophobic good ol' boys were silent with wide eyes.
So I watched
it again the other day, older and wiser than I had been as a college student,
and found myself deeply affected at the ending montage of the artists,
dancers, athletes, actors and so many others who are lost to us because
of this disease.
And then it startled
me.
At the end of
the movie, the original version listed the statistics as they were at the
time of the movie's release in 1993. We'd watched those statistics grow
throughout the movie, after all, and the final tally was stunning.
But in the version
I watched the other day, they're updated the numbers. I found myself horrified.
An estimated
21 million people worldwide have died of AIDS. About 17 million of them
are in Africa. About 36 million are infected with HIV right now, and 26
million of them live in Africa. Approximately 40,000 Ameriicans will be
infected with HIV this year. AIDS is the leading cause of death for black
men ages 25-44. Ethiopia will see about 1.7 million people die THIS YEAR.
I know, we don't
really care about the raging fires of AIDS in Africa. Let TIME do its stunning
cover story on how this disease infected one-fourth of South African adults
- as U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies filed lawsuits over
a law that allowed South Africa to buy brand-name AIDS drugs at lower rates.
They waged that legal war for three years before dropping it 1998. It hasn't
seemed to hurt too much - GlaxoSmithKline, which holds the patent on AZT,
cleared $6.31 billion in 2000 AFTER taxes, research and all other expenditures.
CNN's web site
has a special section on the 20th anniversary of AIDS, with a link to the
TIME piece. The photo essay of these disease-wracked people brought tears
to my eyes. I wish copyright laws would allow me to have included
one, because just that one image
- a dying woman holding a dying child - would be enough to MAKE you care.
TIME pulls no
punches. The structure of African society is part of the reason that AIDS
is killing entire generations. A woman who asks her husband to wear a condom
is condemned as a whore and beaten. Men disdain condoms, yet are incredibly
promiscious. The Catholic Church in Africa still forbids the use of condoms.
And then there's
Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa, who disputes that HIV causes AIDS.
In Mbeki's defense, his see-no-evil attitude is symptomatic of the African
culture, which tries to pretend AIDS doesn't exist because the stigma attached
to it can literally kill - a woman who let slip that she was infected was
stoned to death by her neighbors last year.
An 11-year-old
interviewed by TIME lives in a Johannesburg orphanage. She was infected
by her stepfather, who sexually abused her. The orphanage cannot afford
the drugs she needs, and she will probably die this year.
Another woman
was married with two daughters when her husband was murdered. She fled
with her children to her husband's family, which sent her to be "cleansed,"
a procedure that allows the dead man's brother to have sex with her. She
fled again, starving and trying to keep her children alive. She was unable
to get work without being "cleansed," and her own family was gone. She
became a prostitute, one of the few who insists her clients use condoms.
Sometimes, when she tells them to wear a condom, they beat her. She tries
to get home by 10 p.m. each night so she won't have to 'service' the taxi
driver.
The average trick
costs about $2.87 in American dollars. In much of Africa, $15 dollars will
feed you for a month. The triple cocktail that currently holds AIDS in
check costs $10-15,000 a year for one patient. Do the math.
Here in America,
CNN reports that Americans without health insurance don't fare much better.
The federal government created AIDS drug assistance programs so that states
could provide medicine to the uninsured. But many states have limited the
number of people who can join the programs, and waiting lists are the rule.
President
Shrub's 2002 budget doesn't provide any additional money to the program.
Surprise, surprise. This comes from the administration that floated a test
balloon about closing the White House AIDS office, and hastily withdrew
the idea when the public outcry hit the East Lawn before noon.
CNN interviewed
Sean Strub, an AIDS activist who has been HIV positive since 1981. He names
the death of Rock Hudson as the turning point for America's awareness of
AIDS as a devastating plague. Until Hudson died, it was still a "gay plague,"
a medical hiccup.
"You know, until
parents were scared for their 17-year-old girls, it wouldn't happen," Strub
told CNN. "Until straight white men were getting it, it wouldn't happen."
Now we have the
same attitude. Despite 40,000 Americans being infected each year, we pretend
it's not going to happen because it's not us. Never mind Rock Hudson, Magic
Johnson, Liberace, Robert Mapplethorpe, Freddie Mercury, Robert "Mr. Brady"
Reed, Anthony Perkins, tennis player Arthur Ashe, anchorman Max Robinson,
concert pianist Peter Allen, actress Amanda Blake, 1976 Olympic skater
John Curry or the quarter-million Americans who have died since Rock Hudson.
Of these, by the way, Magic is the only one still left alive.
Imagine, for
a moment, that we had South Africa's problem. Imagine one-fourth of the
population is infected. In my office alone, that means four of the people
I work with every day are infected. Of my college friends, at least seven
would be dead or dying. Of my close family, at least two would be popping
about 20 pills a day.
"What does all
this mean to me? Why should I care? I'm not infected, no one I know is
infected, and Africa is a hell of a long way away. So what?"
It is this attitude
that kept AIDS under the covers for the first ten years, that kept Reagan
from mentioning AIDS in public until 1986, that kept research funding and
public acceptance and mobilization for a cure out of the question.
"What does all
this mean to me? Why should I care? I'm not infected, no one I know is
infected, and only gay men are dying. So what?"
My, haven't we
come a long way.
When TIME did
its story, the reporters found a young woman seated beside a crib, caring
tirelessly for her dying baby. No AIDS drugs were available, of course,
but there was plenty of suffering to go around. She watched the doctors
do the best they could until her baby died.
I care.
Not because my own personal interest is at stake, but because I am a member
of the human race, for better or for worse. That mother could easily have
been me, standing over my son in a crib I knew he'd never leave, but for
the blind circumstances of my birth.
When we speak
of our own national interests, in matters of war or disease, we forget
that we have one common interest, an interest President Kennedy knew of
long before I was born: We are all human, we all breathe the same air,
we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.
AIDS is a plague
on ALL our houses, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we as a species
will find a way to survive it.
To find out more, please click these
links:
TIME
Magazine: "AIDS in Africa"
CNN.com:
"20 Years of AIDS" |
