Celebrate AIDS Day

Warning for parents: This column is rated PG-13.

"Celebrate" and World AIDS Day seem an odd combination for one sentence. Nevertheless, please do. Worth celebrating are increasing awareness, more and early testing which reduce deaths, resources once absent, and compassion for the seriously ill - here, across the U.S. and at the far edges of the world. Worth celebrating is the lifting of life-risking ignorance by charging against realities head-on. "Getting to zero" is this year's theme; zero new infections, zero deaths, zero discrimination.

The North Idaho HIV Planning Group (NIHIVPG) and North Idaho AIDS Coalition (NIAC) are hosting today's events, beginning with free, confidential HIV testing and/or counseling from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at North Idaho College's student union building. Testing is always available free through NIAC and at Panhandle Health District; results come as fast as 15 minutes. A public candlelight vigil will be held at the Human Rights Education Institute near the lake from 6 to 7 p.m.; similar vigils will be held simultaneously throughout Idaho.

Each time I write about HIV/AIDS I get two types of responses: gratitude and personal stories, and a few emails attributing the disease to sin and holy vengeance. Discriminatory biases aside for the moment, the latter category also incorrectly presumes sexual orientation. HIV doesn't share that presumption, infecting people in all categories, even babies. Unprotected sex is still how the majority contract it, and that means male-female contact as well.

The biggest concern locally? The Internet. More men and women from Kootenai and Bonner counties are now "hooking up" this way with strangers in Idaho and Washington, according to Sue Souvenir with NIHIVPG. Souvenir also works with her husband, a board-certified HIV physician provider. Too often these virtual contacts lead to contracting the human immunodeficiency virus. Sadly, Souvenir says one category of patients who increasingly get HIV this way is college-aged adults, who believe between school and work they just don't have the time to develop relationships the old-fashioned way. As was true before, teens are another growing group for HIV infection, simply because of unprotected activity. If their parents talked openly with them about condoms, this could be reduced.

Another category of Internet hook-ups is married men leading secret double lives, having short-term affairs with men or women. Apparently this national trend has picked up locally; they find dates on the Internet or answer ads and then meet in Coeur d'Alene or Spokane, sometimes in public places. If they contract a disease from unprotected sexual activity (intercourse or oral - yes, AIDS can be contracted from oral sex), they bring it home to their wives.

Regardless of purpose, method or outsider judgment (including prejudice that leads people to marry someone they don't want to), the answer is simple. Spread the word: Always use a condom and if you didn't, get tested ASAP with a simple saliva test. Early treatment can prevent or delay the full development of AIDS.

I know this isn't fun to talk about nor for some, comfortable. Tough subjects never are, but keeping them in the closet has caused much needless suffering. World AIDS Day is chiefly designed to inform. For more information see Aids.org, Worldaidsday.org, or call NIAC at (208) 665-1448 for confidential help.

Sholeh Patrick is an attorney and a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Email [email protected]