HIV/AIDS Awareness Week canceled

Elliot Golan / Roundup

The Student Health Center has canceled HIV/AIDS Awareness Week at Pierce this semester due to its scheduled relocation to the new Student Services Building.

The event, originally set to take place in October, was to occur the same week the Student Health Center is moving, according to Bernardine Pregerson, professor of

life science.

“It was just too much,” Pregerson said.

She added that though she hoped it would be on schedule for this semester, they are on schedule for the spring semester event, which is slated for March.

The week usually includes public speakers as well as free HIV testing.

“While free HIV testing will not be offered this semester, any student can receive a $9 serum HIV test through the Health Center by simply making an appointment,” wrote
Beth Benne, director of the Student Health Center, in an e-mail.

Benne also wrote that Pierce will be unable to coordinate with the speakers bureau of  Being Alive.

Being Alive is a group of men and women, all HIV positive, who have been to Pierce in the past to speak during HIV/AIDS Awareness Week.

Their services include emotional support, a wellness center, education and a speakers bureau, according to Kevin Kurth, executive director.

“If the date has been moved, we can always send speakers,” Kurth said.

Being Alive speaks at several other colleges in the area, including UCLA, according to Colin Hadlow, volunteer chairman of the speakers bureau.

“Young people just don’t come out of the closet with HIV,” Hadlow said.

Hadlow also told of the sobering statistics about the ages at which young people get tested.

“Of 700 students, seven will get tested,” he said.

The Pierce College Gay Straight Alliance intends to take on the load in late October left by the canceled event, according to Annette Pakhchian, the club’s vice president.

“We hope to have a table set up with pamphlets and condoms to give away,” said Chris Murphy, GSA president.

AIDS affects all races and ethnicity groups, with statistics showing no category to be insusceptible.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists Black/African American as the ethnicity group they estimate to have the most cases of AIDS through 2007 on their Web site. The CDC names male-to-male sexual contact as the largest transmission
category.

The CDC also lists as the second- and third-highest categories through 2007 as that of injection drug use and high-risk heterosexual contact, respectively. High-risk heterosexual contact is defined as “heterosexual contact with a person known to have, or to be at high risk for, HIV infection,” according to the Web site.

AIDS also affects all age groups. “AIDS is the fifth leading cause of death among people aged 25 to 44 in the United States,” according to Google Health.

“It’s not something we can just brush under the rug. It’s not going to go away,” Pakhchian said.

The Pierce College GSA has formed a team for the AIDS Walk Los Angeles, which takes place Oct. 18. The GSA has put posters up around campus to recruit more walkers to their team.

The walk begins and ends in West Hollywood Park at San Vicente Boulevard. The 10-kilometer walk starts at 10 a.m. and is expected to take roughly two to three hours to complete, according to the organization’s Web site.

AIDS Walk Los Angeles has raised more than $63 million since the event began 25 years ago, according to James Leahy, team coordinator and fundraising specialist for AIDS Walk Los Angeles.

“We have lifelong volunteers who have been doing this for 20 plus years,” Leahy said.

Leahy told of people arriving early in the morning to begin work and not leaving until well after dinner, which is often donated by corporate sponsors.

“Organizations are just revving up,” Leahy said.

The AIDS community received important news Sept. 24, when reports of a successful AIDS prevention vaccine flooded the news.

The vaccine, a combination of two vaccines that had failed in the past, showed a reduction in risk of HIV infection by more than 31 percent, according to announcements out of Bangkok.

The U.S.-sponsored project was conducted by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health.

“Honestly, I don’t really have a comment yet,” Murphy said of the vaccine reports.

 

 

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