Letters to the Magazine

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By Newsweek Editors

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Readers expressed hope for a cure for AIDS amid their sorrow over the high toll the pandemic continues to exact. One said, "Your comprehensive essays [were] tough reading. Tough to learn how far-reaching and devastating this disease has become in 25 years." A lawyer who once defended AIDS victims and is trying to do more to "play my part in prevention, testing and treatment" wrote, "That sense of doom may be lifting if the Clintons and Gateses of this world can lead us to more solutions." And a longtime AIDS sufferer noted, "Although I may not make it, I do know those in the future will be able to overcome this horrible disease and live a normal life." One black woman's sense of urgency echoed those of other readers. "The disease affects so many of us," she said. "I hope the black community can come together to spread awareness and create change like it did when we were fighting for our lives and rights in the 20th century."

Your May 15 issue, "AIDS at 25," is one of NEWSWEEK's most important. I grew up in a rural part of Virginia, where HIV/AIDS was, and often still is, viewed as a distant phenomenon that affects those living in the city or across the ocean. My family was like many others, never once thinking that HIV/AIDS could have anything to do with us. My older brother Kevin died of AIDS-related pneumonia when I was 10 years old. I relate this anecdote now in my work as a health educator for Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry, where I manage a program called Face to Face. My program enters local schools, church youth groups, juvenile-detention centers--any place where youth congregate--to teach a message of HIV prevention through education. We put a face to this disease by having those living with HIV or AIDS tell their stories. This enables young people to see that any person from any walk of life could be infected. Many parents take their children out of our program, meaning our educational message of safety and the statistics will not reach their ears. All I can hope is that their parents are educating them at home on these important issues. I believe that, perhaps, if someone had come to speak to my family about HIV, my brother Kevin would still be with us today.

Tara Dwyer Falls Church, Va.

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As the developer of the nation's first home HIV test--1996 on your timeline ("How AIDS Changed America")--I have been a longtime advocate of HIV testing as a way to reduce the spread of AIDS. The only way you know whether you or your partner has HIV is by taking a test. Yet this logical approach to AIDS prevention has been all but ignored for two decades as politics have skewed AIDS-prevention programs to a choice of abstinence or the "Don't ask, don't tell" approach of condoms. It is encouraging that former president Clinton is beginning to provide leadership on this issue and advocate for broad-scale HIV testing. I no longer have any financial interest in AIDS testing, but with 40,000 new cases of AIDS each year in the United States, the time is long overdue for public-health officials to do more than give lip service to the benefits of testing.

Elliott J. Millenson Former President and CEO Johnson & Johnson, Direct Access Diagnostics Potomac, Md.

The sheer number of people affected by AIDS makes this worldwide disease a worthy topic for an issue of NEWSWEEK. I would have liked to see in your extensive coverage an article about sexual abstinence as a prevention method. Regrettably, we do not want to discuss the possibility of teaching our young people to exercise self-control and to abstain from sexual activity until marriage. Yet if they do and they marry someone who has also abstained and they remain sexually faithful in marriage, their chance of contracting AIDS is 0 percent, and there is not even a need for a condom! Abstinence is smart, totally effective and cost-efficient, but it requires that we challenge people to be self-controlled. America must change its sexual habits before those habits destroy coming generations.

James Hansee Cincinnati, Ohio

Thank you for reminding us that AIDS is still taking a toll on our world. As a fortysomething woman who was 21 years old when the first AIDS jokes made the rounds at my sorority house at the University of Texas, I lost countless friends (mostly gay men) in the 1980s and 1990s. I can recall far too many "death watches," and at one time, I even had a "spring funeral outfit" and a "summer funeral outfit." When my best friend, Chip, died of AIDS-related complications in 1994, it shut me down emotionally. I thought I had put the sorrow and memories behind me until last year, when I began doing crisis counseling for part of my master's degree. Something awakened inside of me, and memories of Chip came flooding back, along with brightly tinged memories of happier times. I will never forget Chip, and I hope that people never lose the sense of urgency about AIDS or forget the tragic loss of talent and humanity that the first wave of AIDS brought to our country. I wonder how many other friends and family members are still touched daily, as I am, by their losses.

Lea McLeod Matthews Nashville, Tenn.

We need to be reminded that we can't look at diseases on an impersonal level. AIDS and HIV are a reality, but in order to make everyone realize that, we must put faces behind those frightening letters. To bring attention to the epidemic, we must bring attention to how close to home it is. And to accept the truth of the virus is to accept the fact that those who have it are not walking diseases. They are people. They are mothers, fathers and, yes, even children. They need love, trust and everything any other human needs. Having a disease makes you no less than what you already were. Thank you for your articles and for continuing to share the truth.

Gina Blanchard Santa Cruz, Calif.

It is important for your readers to know that Ken Meeks, whose 1986 photo ran with your story "How AIDS Changed America," was much more than a tragic picture representing the devastation of AIDS. Ken Meeks was my best friend. My youngest son is named after him. Perhaps Ken's greatest contribution to AIDS awareness, and action, was his decision to allow "Nightline," hosted by Ted Koppel, to record the final few months of his life in 1986. This was truly heroic. As Ken's health deteriorated, he and his partner took a cross-country trip by train (something Ken had always wanted to do). But the trip was cut short in September 1986 as Ken was much too ill to continue. He was admitted to San Francisco General Hospital and died there a short time later. His final interview with Koppel aired a few days before his death. It was powerful and moving. Ken truly believed it was his mission to educate others regarding this terrible disease about which so little was known. Rest in peace, Ken. Mission accomplished.

Art Winters Holliston, Mass. As owners of a small retail chain that caters primarily to the 18- to 30-year-old age group, we were happy to provide to our customers (who wanted them) free condoms that we got from a local HIV/AIDS prevention organization. However, the organization relied on federal funding that was cut after the current administration came into power. It seems that prevention of the world's most devastating epidemic, the strain it inflicts on the health-care system and the deaths it causes aren't as important as a war with no end in sight.

Phil and Sandy Azancot Texarkana, Texas

Thank you for the cover story on AIDS, the scourge that took my husband, Bill, 12 years ago. In the early 1990s, heroic doctors and social workers from the Deaconess Hospital in Boston supported him mightily as his health failed. He was part of a group taking the antiviral drugs experimentally. Bill took each kind separately, before doctors were able to concoct the "cocktail" now keeping AIDS victims alive. Bill's poor mother and father witnessed, six months after his death, the heralding of a "cure for AIDS." We rejoiced for those able to take (and afford) AZT but cried bitterly for our own loss. Three lovely daughters missed having their daddy watch them grow up. To all affected by the NEWSWEEK articles, please join us for the AIDS walks all across the country later this year. Contribute if you can. Let's find a way to stop this plague from continuing to kill our loved ones.

Linda Lewis San Diego, Calif.

I applaud Melinda French Gates for acknowledging that women need more HIV-prevention tools, yet prevention still "depend[s] on a man's cooperation" ("What Women Really Need"). However, this merely addresses the effect of HIV/ AIDS, not the cause. The cause is the age-old problem that women lack respect in most religious and political structures and organizations. As a result, while platitudes are tossed like doggy bones, there is little substantial movement allowing women a voice, proper education and economic opportunities, thus consolidating power and control within an elite patriarchal system throughout most of the world. Another horrific effect of this system is the objectification of women through the huge money-making schemes of pornography and prostitution. What will it take to eradicate HIV/AIDS at its root cause, namely, lack of respect for women?

Dee Warner Wilmington, Dela.

Robert Wilder's my turn article, "It Takes a Real Man to Be a Good Mother" (May 15), brought back many memories of my childhood. When my mother died at 34, my father raised two boys and five girls. He lost one son to a farm accident and another to World War II. He was strict and firm in teaching us girls to care for one another while he worked full time as a coal miner and part time as a bartender. Even so, he was always available for us, even though his spare time was limited. And he was such a wonderful father. He died at 48 from black lung and left five well-adjusted young ladies. Thank you for this article.

Angelina Quattrocchi Ray

Corrales, N.M.

Robert Wilder's my turn column was the most touching and heartfelt thing I've read in years. His father is truly an inspiration. I hope that I would be that kind of man if circumstances required it. Thank you for publishing this inspiring story.

Matt Green Rego Park, N.Y.

I read your May 15 issue on Mother's Day, while at the Y on the cross-trainer at 7:30 a.m. Afterward, I went shopping, cleaned the house, ran errands and awaited the return of my three kids, who were with their dad that weekend. Why is it that close to the day we set aside to honor mothers for the hard work they do, the my turn column features a story about a man doing what millions of women do every day? Why is it we lionize men for doing women's work and otherwise take for granted what women do all the time? When I first had kids, my then husband would come home and tell me about the people who fawned over him as he walked the babies in their strollers. No one ever fawned over me for taking my child for a walk. I was invisible. Come on, NEWSWEEK, did you have to take a day set aside for women and use it to honor a man?

Pam Van Coevering Arden Hills, Minn.

Anna Quindlen's immigration analysis is right on the mark ("Undocumented, Indispensable," May 15). She points to our desire for "cheap houses and ... fresh fruit" and to the government's greed for "taxes from workers whose existence it will not recognize," thus suggesting a compromise solution. Since it is our own failure to control our national borders and our negligence in permitting illegal aliens to remain here undisturbed for years, why not admit our share of the fault? This time, grant them all a clearly defined legal status, thus permitting our farmers and employers to hire them legally, and start to secure our national borders seriously rather than using Band-Aids on a leaking container of acid. If we can continue to spend $200 million a day in Iraq, let us spend what is necessary for our own national security.

Fr. Larry N. Lorenzoni, S.D.B.

San Francisco, Calif.

Anna Quindlen would have us believe that opponents of illegal immigration are xenophobic hypocrites whose disdain rises over the color of skin. She could not be more wrong. While the contribution of immigrants over the years has helped make this country great, it is the rule of law that has made it work. And although dreadfully flawed and in need of significant repair, there is an established system of laws for managing and regulating immigration--as much a matter of safety and security as economics. The issue here is not cheap housing and produce; rather, it is the notion of rewarding lawlessness. The idea that it's better to give in to the demands of illegal aliens because it is convenient, despite the proven negative effects on the economy, reflects the very discouraging reality that America is bound (and determined) to crumble under the weight of its incessant consumption, inexorable greed and pitiful inability to plan for the future.

David Givot Lakewood, Calif.

Thank you, Anna Quindlen, for suggesting to those Americans "who are really incensed by millions of undocumented immigrants" that they refuse to eat fruits and vegetables harvested by undocumented immigrants and not buy homes built by them. It would be a movement similar to the successful one organized by Cesar Chavez, who led farm workers in the national boycott of grapes in a demand for fair wages and against the indiscriminate use of pesticides in the fields where they labored. A large order for those "incensed" Americans, but it could be so rewarding. My family participated in the Chavez boycott of grapes, and I was never prouder than when my then 3-year-old son finally saw grapes (not on our table) and asked, "What are those?"

Celine E. Riedel Avon Lake, Ohio

In "How AIDS changed America," we incorrectly reported that Ryan White died in 1991. He died in 1990. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.

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