AIDS Researchers Call for Drastic Changes in HIV Prevention

An advertisement shows a healthy looking man rock climbing. The caption reads: "I hope there is a Port-O-Potty up there." The side effects of HIV medications are also listed, including diarrhea. Beside the climber is a tagline: "HIV is on the rise. Don't be part of the second wave."

The ad is a take-off of drug advertisements for HIV drugs that depicted a group of HIV-positive men rock climbing. Both the original and doctored ads were shown at a HIV treatment update in San Francisco last week. "We don't see ads like this out and about anymore in the Castro [a gay neighborhood in San Francisco]. We need prevention ads that make people think," said Dr. Tom Coates, a leader in HIV prevention and AIDS studies who showed the ads.

HIV infections continue to increase among gay and bisexual men across the country. According to Coates the gay community has to change its attitudes toward the disease and toward people who are HIV-positive. "We are so used to thinking of HIV-positive people as victims, we are afraid to think of an HIV-positive person as responsible," said Coates, who is HIV-positive. "Why do we tolerate people who are HIV-positive and spreading the disease?"

Coates spoke to more than 100 people who gathered recently at the University of California, San Francisco to hear about the latest HIV/AIDS research and treatments. Coates first expressed his exasperation with the gay community's attitudes toward safe sex and prevention last fall. His frustration was still apparent at the forum.

Also discussed at the forum is the ballooning epidemic of hepatitis C, with 4 million already infected. Unlike hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine for hepatitis C, and health officials do not fully understand how it is transmitted. But the researchers stressed the need for people to get vaccinated for hepatitis A and B, practice safe sex, and talk about HIV/AIDS with their sexual partners.

"Prevention has got to go back to the community. The community has got to say it is not okay to spread HIV," Coates said. "Until that is done, nothing is going to change."

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