PageA2 WiagkMhSakm dutxtide Thursday, January 26, 1989 Spealcer stresses dangers of AIDS to group ^ By TONYA V. SMITH ?> Chrontelt Staff Wrif r ; . AIDS is running rampant in T;ihe Afro-American community *and if the race is not sufficiently ; educated and warned about the *fnal disease thousands will die, ? said Dr. Richard P. Keeling, presi 5 dent of the American College 5 Health Association. < Keeling spoke to about 150 ; students, teachers and staff mem i bers at Wake Forest University ? last week as part of the institu i tion's AIDS Awareness Day. r "The issyp nf AIDS in - ty conuiiunities in this country has Zgol to be addressed, particularly at ^the urban level," Keeling said. fact is that the frequency of 3 AIDS among people in the black 3race is about twice of what it > would be expected to be given ^ their frequency in the population." ?> Afro-Americans make up ? about 11.5 percent of this coun 5 u y's population. About 26 percent 3 of the nation's race has the human ^immunodeficiency virus, HIV, ^ tnat causes AIDS, Keeling said. ^ "This overrepresentation \ occurs not because there's some thing about being Latin or black. ! that causes AIDS, it's because of S the connection to IV (intravenous) 5 drug use, poverty and lack of access to medical services," Keel ing said. _ * "A lot of people in black communities tend to look at this as a white boy's disease, 'this is a }? gay man's disease', and that (men r tality) ir lethal among blacks in Tv this country and it has got to be - confronted." "The mindset has been difficult --Z*- to confront because when whites try to tell Afro- Americans that the ' disease is also affecting them, x Afro-Americans feel whites are trying to pin the origin of the dis- " ease on them, said Keeling. "We have had> a great deal of ? difficulty confronting this because for a long time people who've trial to address it were labeled raafe," Keeling said. "We have : had to, therefore, be very sensitive N about it and the obvious way to - deal with that is to have blacks . .. educate blacks." ' s The most successful educa ^ tional projects about Acquired .v Immune Deficiency Syndrome f have involved Afro-Americans ' teaching each other, Keeling said. "In urban minority communi ties, particularly in South Florida, in some parts of Texas, in New York, and Philadelphia, this ' (AIDS) has the potential to run like wild fire through black com ^ munities. And if we don't do. ; something, we're going to be fac ing potentially thousands and thousands of deaths among urban M blacks." Not only Afro- Americans, but all people have the "this can't hap pen to me syndrome" when the topic of AIDS comes up. Keeling V told the audience as he presented a V. series of slides depicting AIDS' victims. i * "This could not be my face," - Keeling said while showing a pic r t 1 ? The Winston-Salem Chronicle is published every Thursday by the Winston-Salem Chronicle Publishing Co. Inc., 617 N. Lib erty St. Mailing address: Post Office Box 3154, Winston Salem, N.C. 27102. Phone: 722-8624. FAX: (919) 723-9173. Second-class postage paid at Winston-Salem, N.C. 27102. The Winston-Salem Chronicle is a charter member of the fawsfinder service of the Associated Press and a member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association, the North Carolina Press Association and the North Carolina Black Publishers Association. Subscription: $18.52 per year, payable in advance (North Carolina sales tax included). Please add $5.00 for out-of-town delivery. PUBLICATION USPS NO. 067910. ture of an Afro-American woman _ with ? sunken face and skeleton like body. "This could not be my future. This intensive care unit, bed, ventilator, the IV line could not be connectert to m y body. I could not someday experience this pain. This could not be my loneli ness, my isolation, my loss. This could not be the end of my plans. This could not be my family, my children, my spouse. It couldn't happen to me." Because the majority of peo ple are familiar with what Keeling called "AIDS 101" ? the basic facts and data about the disease, he declined to spend a lot of time rehashing what people already know. "The outcome -- no matter what the clinical disease caused by AIDS is -- the outcome is pret ty predictable," said Keeling. ' "Mortality rates have been ? extraordinarily high. To average the amount from 1981 to the cur rent day, they come out to 56 per cent. That does not, however, sugT gest that that 44 percent of people with AIDS will be long-term sur vivors." Medical experts still expect for 99 percent or more of the peo ple diagnosed with full-blown AIDs to die of the disease within an average of 27 months from the day of their diagnosis, at an aver ^ age age of 34.2 years. Unfortunately, the undergrad uate student carrying the virus that causes AIDS doesn't act sick, feel sick or look sick until about eight years after contracting the disease, Keeling said "Although they can transmit the virus to somebody else, they're _ usually not identified, they usually don't realize they have it them selves," said Keeling. "So that - makes this an invisible problem. The invisibility of AIDS, there fore, gets in the way of our trying to convince people to take it seri ously." Today there are about 82,500 college aged students with AIDS. That figure will jump to a quar ter of a million in 1991 to half a million. By 1993 there will be 100,000 new cases of AIDS a year, and 100,000 deaths caused by AIDS annually. "Which means that by 1993 - which is about the time that some of you will have just finished col lege ? by 1993, we will in fact have the disease AIDS that will kill four times as many young people as drunk drivers, six times as~ many as murder, eight times as many as suicide, 20 times as many as leukemia, 50 times as many as brain tumors. By the time most of you are out of college AIDS will Photos by Charmane Delaverson Above, members of the audience listen in rapt attention as Dr. Richard P. Keeling, left photo, addresses participants in Wake Forest*s AIDS Awareness Day. be the most common cause of - death," said Keeling, ? Because members of the gay community are changing their sexual habits, the number of new AIDS cases- in that segmenr of the population has dropped from 67 percent in September 1987 to 58 percent in September 1988. As of January 1989, that figure is at 54 percent, Keeling said. AIDS cases among infra venous drug users is rising rapidly from 15.5 in 1987 percent to 23 percent last year. That figure has climbed to 25 percent this month. Transmission of AIDS among het erosexuals has increased from about 40 percent in 1987 to 4.5 percent in 1988, and is now at 5 percent. > , Drug users must stop sharing needles, and heterosexuals must abstain or practice safe sex in order for the number of AlbS cases in those segments of the population to decrease, Keeling said. . t. ? Safe sdx means getting to know your partner before engag ing in intercourse, using latex condoms coated in & spermicide and not mixing alcohol withrsex, Keeling said. ^ He admitted it was easy for him to tell college students and others that they have to change their lifestyles to be safe from the AIDS virus, but that, he said, is tough to do. "We should acknowledge that these changes are tough," Keeling said. "That acknowledgement doesn't mean we should give up. It means we should recognize, among other things, that there are some things that make it tough for people to change." ** But in referring to a chart list ing the rapid spreading of other sexually transmitted diseases -- gonorrhea, herpes, clymidia ? Keeling said making changes has been tough all along. "Ultimately, the only thing that will prevent HIV infection is ? self-esteem," Keeling said. "I can't stop you from developing AIDS. I can't stop you from being infected Please see page A3 COME, STAY WITH US1 We