Coachella Valley Recognizes World AIDS Day
PALM SPRINGS – Rick Freeman is HIV+ for the past 21 years.
“Ihave a fairly good quality of life: taking your medications, following your regime of healthy lifestyle,” he says. “Due to theHIV meds, it’s working.”
On this December 1, World AIDS Day, Freeman gets a special treat. Not only is he getting his grocery voucher from the AIDS Assistance Program (A.A.P.), but he’s also getting a holiday stocking stuffer filled with toiletries.
“Most of our clients are living on an income of about $840 a month,” explains Mark Anton, AAP’s executive director.
More than 25 years ago, doctors first diagnosedHIV, and the stigma associated with it is still here.
“You know? There’s still discrimination existing in housing and jobs,” says Anton. “It’s unfortunate, but it exists.”
David Brinkman,executive director of the Desert AIDS Project, says the face of HIV and AIDS has changed. Anyone can get it. He says, those at highest risk are those who aren’t getting tested and not using safe sex.
“Talking about sex makes people verklempt, and they just shut down around that conversation,” says Brinkman. “IfHIV was spread like the H1N1 virus, we would be on top of it 29 years into the epidemic.”
Brinkman says one particular group actually has decreased its chances of transmitting the virus: IV drug users.
“IV drug programs that focus on providing clean needles to addicts has worked,” he explained. “When you seeCenters for Disease Controlstudies in the past 20years,HIV transmission has decreased.
AAP’s Mark Anton says as long as the organization is needed, they will take care of their 500 clients as best they can. But he’d like nothing better than for AAP to be gone. After all, it would be welcome sign that the epidemic is over.
But it isn’t over. There’s still much work to be done beyondWorld AIDS Day.
