4B
LIFE/tE^tte CHadotte
Thursday, June 8 ,2006
Americans touched early by AIDS, 25 years later
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO-In
those days, a diagnosis was a
death sentence. No one knew
how you got it, this mysteri
ous ailment that savaged the
human body with almost
medieval cruelty
Baffled doctors threw every
thing they had at skin can
cers, brain infections, intesti
nal parasites and other horrif
ic symptoms. Nothing
worked.
Twenty-five years after fed
eral health officials first rec
ognized the disease that
would become known as
Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome, AIDS no longer is'
synonymous with terminal ill
ness.
But like other wars, the
early years of the AIDS epi
demic produced survivors,
people whose fives bear the
contours of having crossed so
malignant an enemy
Cameron Siemers, Lonnie
Payne and Lisa Capaldini are
three of them.
Three faces of AIDS, one
message for a country where
more than half a million peo
ple have died: 25 years is not
such a long tdme.
• Cameron Siemers, 24,
infected druing a blood trans
fusion as a toddler
Cameron Siemers had a big
secret until he was 18. When
he decided to give it up, he did
so in spectacular fashion,
telling his entire high school
graduating class that he had
AIDS.
“It was hard because I knew
all these people,” Siemers said
of the commencement speech.
‘1 just wanted to give them
something because we were
graduating. ... And just to get
it off my chest, to let them
know.”
The revelation explained
why Cameron was small for
his age and missed long
stretches of school in the Los
Angeles subrnb of Los
Alamitos. When fiiends won
dered why he could never
have sleepovers at their hous
es, he always had said he had
hemophilia, which was true.
That’s how he got HIV
His doctors think Siemers
got tainted blood in a transfu
sion when he was 3 years old,
but he wasn’t diagnosed until
he was 7. His mother gave
him the news while they were
playing Legos.
“I knew what it was and I
knew what it meant, but I
didn’t think of it as a death
sentence,” he said.
As he’s gotten older, it’s got
ten harder to hold onto his
innocence. Siemers is among
the minority of patients
whose AIDS has proven resis
tant to the drug “cocktail’”
that charged ihe course of the
disease. So even as treatment
options have improved, he has
gotten sicker.
He almost died two years
ago after his inflamed pan
creas started bleeding uncon
trollably, a chronic conditicai
associated with HQV Recently
he was on a new drug that
looked promising, but he had
to stop taking it becaixse the
medication exacerbated the
abdominal pain fi:om his pan
creatitis. His doctor is tryir^
to get him enrolled in a study
for another drug.
Looking back, it’s easy to
regret the things he hasn’t
been able to do that other
guys his age take for granted.
Asked for an example, he
THE STOCK MARKET
If you have been sexually active, remember to have yourself
checked to make sure you have a clean bill of health.
Seniors and disasters
Continued from page 1B
pi-eparedness information to elders and those with disabilities
appropriate to their needs and in accessible formats.
• Building relationships among organizations before disaster
strikes to improve coordination and communication in emer
gency situations.
• Improving identification and tracking methods of both peo
ple and health information.
Hurricane Katrina resulted in 1,330 deaths, many of whom
were elderly In Louisiana, roughly 71 percent of the victims
were older than 60, and 47 percent w^e over 75.
• A key finding highlighted in the report fixim a Harris
Interactive Survey conducted for AARP is that about 13 million
persons age 50 and older in the U.S. say they will need help to
evacuate in a disaster; with about half of these individuals
requiring help finm someone outside of their household. This
proportion increases with advancing age.
“Recent catastrophic events have tax^ht us we have to pay
greater attention to evacuating, identifying and ensuring the
safe return of thousands of fi-afi older adults fi'dng on their own
or in long-term care fadfities,” NoveUi said.
doesn’t skip a beat: “Dating.”
Siemers isn’t sure why he
giew up thinking AIDS was
something he had to conceal
fix)m aU but a few trusted
fiiends. After he revealed his
secret, he felt blessed by all
the support he recrived.
While Siemers has con
tempt for infected people who
conceal Iheir HIV status fixim
sex partners, he doesn’t think
of himself as morally superior
to those who acquired the
virus through unprotected
sex or intravenous drug use.
“I’ve met a lot of people with
this disease and they range
fi-om every ethnicity and
every gender and they aie
just people trying to get
though it,” he said. “AIDS is
not prejudiced. It wfil attack
anybody”
• Lonnie Payne, 53, diag
nosed with AIDS in 1986
The same month Cameron
was conceived, Lonnie Payne
moved fixim Chicago to San
Francisco with his lover, Joel
Swandby
In April 1981, the northern
California city was “the gay
Mecca of the United States,”
and Payne and Swandby rev
eled in the fi'eedom of living
in a place where men could
love other men with abandon.
Although Payne remem
bers hearing about a strange
iUness that surfaced in the
gay community that year, it
took time before “the rumor
started getting loiter” and
reality set in. Once-beautiful
men walked the predomi
nantly gay Castro District
fike living skeletons, their
sxmken cheeks bearing the
telltale lesions of Kaposi’s
sarcoma.
Not long after the first HIV
tests became available,
Payne, Swandby, Payne’s
twin brother, Lawrence, and
the brother’s partner,
Timothy Bollinger, decided to
get tested together, “as a fam-
Contlnued from page 1B
Americans now consume
fiiDy one-third of their daily
intake of calories outside the
home. And as of 2000, the
average American took in 300
more calories a day than was
the case 15 years earlier,
according to Agriculture
Department statistics cited in
the report.
Tbday 64 percent of
Americans are overweight,
including the 30 percent who
are obese, according to the
report. It pegs the annual
medical cost of the problem at
nearly $93 billion.
Consumer advocates
increasingly have heaped
some of the blame on restau
rant chains fike McDonald’s,
which bristles at the criticism
while offering more salads
and fimit. The report does not
e5q)ficitly fink dining out with
Ihe rising tide of obesity but
does cite numerous studies
that siiggest there is a con
nection.
The National Restaurant
Association said the report,
which it helped prepare but
does not support, unfairly
targeted its industry
The report encourages
restaxirants to shift the
emphasis of Iheir marketing
to lower-calorie choices, and
include more such options on
menus. In addition, restau
rants could jigger portion
sizes and the variety of foods
available in mixed dishes to
cut calories.
Bundling meals with more
finiits and vegetables also
could help. And letting con
sumers know how many calo
ries are contained in a meal
also could guide the choices
they make, according to the
report.
Simeon Holston, 33, called
more disclosure an excellent
idea as he Ixmched on a
sausage-and-pepperoni pizza
at a downtown Washington
food court.
“OK, I am going to eat junk
food regardless, but let me
eat the junk food that’s goirg
to cause me less damage,”
said Holston, an accountant.
“A lot of times, presented
with information, you will
make a better choice.”
Just over half of the nation’s
287 largest restaurant chains
now make at least some
nutiition information avail
able, said Margo Wootan,
director of nutrition policy for
the Center for Science in the
Public Interest.
“If companies don’t tell
them, people have no way of
knowitg how many calories
they are being servqd at
restaurants. And chances
are, they are being served a
lot more than they realize,”
said Wootan, adding that
Congress shoidd give the
FDA the authority to require
such disclosure.
Dr. Andrew von
Eschenbach, the agency’s act
ing head, said the only place
where he has seen calorie
information fisted on a menu
was at an upscale restaurant
in California. Still, the agenw
wfil not seek the authority m
force others to follow suit, he
said
“At Ihis point in time, it’s
not a matter of more authori
ty it’s using the authority we
have,” von Eschenbach said.
The report notes that the
laboratory work needed to
calculate the calorie content
of a menu item can cost $100,
or anywhere fipom $11,500 to
$46,000 to analyze an entire
menu.
That cost makes it xmfeasi-
ble for restaurants, especially
when menus can change
daily said Shefia Cohn, direc
tor of nutrition policy for the
National Restaurant
Association.
Instead, restaurants
increasin^y are offering var
ied portion sizes, foods made
with whole grains, more diet
drinks and entree salads to fit
the dietary needs of cus
tomers, Cohn said. Still, they
can’t make people eat what
they won't order, she added.
When Americans dined out
in 2005, the leading menu
choices I'emained hambmg-
ers, fiench files and pizza,
according to The NPD Group,
a market research firm. The
presumably healthier option
of a side salad was the No. 4
choice for women, but No. 5
for men, accoixfing to the eat
ing pattern study
On the Net:
Food and Drug Administration:
hl!p://wwwfda.gov/
fiy”
“In those days, there was
this fear of being identified,
so I remember not even using
our real names.”
Afi. four men tested positive.
“In ‘86, that was a death
sentence. We didn’t know
■ how long we had to five,” he
said.
“On one level we were fike,
‘OK, we have this biog. We are
going to do the ri^t thirgs
and stay healthy’ On the
other hand, there was this
fatalistic effect happening,
where it was fike, “If I’m going
to die, why shoxfid I worry
about following some regi
men?”’
The signs sxirfaced soon
enou^. Infection after infec
tion broke thixiugh the men’s
weakened immxme systems,
and the dngs they were tak
ing had debfiitating side-
effects. Those years ai*e ablxu-
for Payne, who was taking
care of Joel while coping with
his own illness. In 1994,
Lawi’ence Payne died, fol
lowed by Bollinger in 1995.
Swandby succxunbed in 1996.
“It’s hard to think back
through that darkness for me
at times,” Lonnie Payne said.
‘T never thoxi^t I would be in
a world without my twin
brother. ... It was fike every
thing I knew that was com
fort was eroding.”
For reasons that remain a
mystery Lonnie Payne
stayed strong long enoxgh to
benefit fixim a new class of
drugs that hit the market
aroimd the time Swandby
died. He thinks l;ie’d be dead,
too, .were it not for the pro
tease inhibitors that ushered
in the era of so-called “cock
tails.”
“They were horrible and
they were nasty The side
effects were everytiiing you
have ever heard—the diar
rhea, the neuropathy” Payne
said. “But for me, the reality
is that they were working,
and it changed my outlook on
life.
‘T started with an attitude
of, T wfil try to see if I can
make these drugs work
becaxise fm really not ready
to check out yet. There’s a
reason why I’m alive and the
other guys aren’t, and I just
need to find out what it is.’”
Another decade has passed.
Tb look at Payne, one would
never know how sick he was.
He retired in 1996 fiom his
marketing job with a tele
phone company and volxm-
teers as a director for two
AIDS organizations. He is 53
years old when he never
expected to see 40.
“I love the fact that we con
sider oxjrselves long-term
survivors of AIDS and not
people fivirg with HIV and
AIDS,” he said. “Because we
are survivors, and whatever
has come up we have navi
gated throxgh it, sometimes
with great success and some
times with jxist passable suc-
• Dr Lisa Capaldini,
nationally recognized HIV
^pert
In her solo medical px-actice
in San Francisco’s Castro
Distiict, Lisa Capaldini sees
a- lot of HIV patients. She
once treated Lonnie Payne’s
late bixither and partner.
Some suffer fixim a sense of
spiritual ennxfi she caUs Ihe
‘Dazarus Phenomenon,” after
the figure whom Jesus '
bixiight back fixim the dead
in the biblical story Well
enox;^ to know their limita
tions but too sick to work full
time, they are the epidemic’s
walking woxinded, Capalcfini
said.
“They are a little bit lost
soxfis,” she said. “They may
have sold a business or never
finished school because they
didn’t think they would be
aroxind. Now what they are
dealing with is, T may five
another 20 or 30 years. What
does sxirviving this mean?”’
Capaldini first encoxmtered
HIV on a medical school fel
lowship in 1981. Her fii-st
AIDS patient two years later
was an intravenous drug
xiser who was going blind
fi’om the disease. She remem
bers her tears of impotence
when she sent him home to
die.
San Francisco General was
one of the first hospitals to
have 3- dedicated AIDS ward,
and as a lesbian herself, she
gravitated to the epidemic
that was hitting gay men.
Even as a new doctor, she
became a nationally recog
nized expert in ti'eating an ill
ness with which no one was
experienced.
These days, the type of care
she pixivides is different. A
decade ago, her waiting room
was full of people getting
ready to die.
‘T have more patients with
HIV in my practice than I
ever have, but I am spendirg
less time with them than I
ever have,” she said.
The challenge today is not
to get complacent about Hiy
she said. Patients mxist close
ly adhere to their dng regi
mens to avoid developing an
immunity
There are complex psycho
logical and sociological rea
sons why HIV patients fall off
their meds, such as domestic
and economic problems.
While Capaldini thinks the
early years of the epidemic
helped “hxunanize” gay men
in America, HIV still carries a
stigma, especially for hetero
sexual women.
Restaurants get help to fight obesity |