Mailbox

Red-Handed

Your latest issue on blood and corporate greed is long-awaited (December 1996/January 1997). Unfortunately, the mainstream media still doesn’t get it. An article in The Wall Street Journal addressed Japan’s AIDS scandal, but the American blood scandal was not even mentioned. Recently, 60 Minutes interviewed a lawyer for the pharmaceutical companies who argued that no one is to blame, and that people with hemophilia are just looking for someone to blame. We want accountability. The HIV infection of 10,000 was preventable.

Degen Pener did an outstanding job of bringing to light the suffering of people with hemophilia, especially in the United States, by putting a face on the issue (“Cheese and Crackers,” December 1996/January 1997). Shawn Decker could be any boy from Anytown, U.S.A.

People continue to be ignorant of the drug companies’ greed and inhumanity, and our government’s inaction. I am ashamed to admit the resemblance between the monstrous Nazi atrocities and what has happened here at home.

Your work is greatly needed and appreciated by those who care.

Positive Celebrity

Michael Anketell does a service to the entire AIDS community by calling attention to the potential costs-both fiscal and ethical-of involving high-profile celebrities in fundraising (“Tarnished Sequins,” November 1996). It would be unfortunate, however, if his book obscured the fact that well-known personalities have an important role to play in raising public awareness and encouraging friends and colleagues to write the checks we all depend on.

At the Momentum AIDS Project, our annual gala is a major fundraiser for our nutrition and counseling programs, and celebrities like RuPaul, Ivana Trump, Betty Comden, A.J. Hammer, Fred Schneider and David Marshall Grant graciously contribute their time, at no cost. The role these individuals play in attracting ticket-buyers, press coverage and the much-coveted “buzz” that all event managers seek is inestimable.

Teens and AIDS

You article about the frightening predicament of teens with HIV and AIDS was overdue (“The Age of Innocence,” October 1996). Because of the stigmas associated with AIDS in the Latino and African-American communities, HIV prevention is not promoted nearly enough. This is particularly difficult for me as a physician, knowing what may lie ahead for many of the teens in my community and around the country. I am therefore pleased to report that Roche Laboratories is providing AIDS service organizations with an HIV-prevention education program for teenagers called In Our Own Words; Teens and AIDS.

Sick and Tired?

I have recently been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Due to the similarities between this disease and HIV disease, it would be helpful and inspiring to read in your magazine about others who are battling this monster. As people with what is described as HIV negative AIDS, we face many of the same problems: Swollen lymph nodes, chronic yeast infections and recurrent infections due to B-cell and T-cell abnormalities. Although it is rare, there are those whose T-cell counts drop to the level where a diagnosis of AIDS would be given, were they to carry the virus.

Wood Cut

POZ alludes to a 1993 study at the University of Wisconsin that found wooden cutting boards to be more hygenic than plastic ones (“Scary Food,” November 1996). However, efforts by the National Sanitation Foundation International and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to replicate these findings have failed, instead indicating just the opposite. Because this subject received so much attention in the popular press, it was also studied by the Institute for Science in the Public Interest. They were finally able to replicate the Wisconsin findings only when using brand-new wooden cutting boards whose fibers were so porous that liquid containing the bacteria was whisked away from the surface to the interior of the board. However, once a wooden cutting board has been used a few times, it’s pores become clogged, and it loses its porousness. And, in fact, it is this very porousness that makes wooden cutting boards dangerous; bacteria can live within the board, protected, for months, only to be re-exposed when the wood is later cut into. In some states, the use of wooden cutting boards is illegal in commercial food-preparation settings, inlcuding those handling only strictly vegetarian food matter.

He Has Issues

I’m really getting sick of Sean Strub’s tirades against Bill Clinton. Will they continue for the next four years? Believe it or not, Sean, there are other issues besides AIDS for which I support Bill Clinton.

Your magazine is silly. “We’re all happy little good-attitude people who don’t want to read about the illnesses and death associated with AIDS. We’re all asymptomatic and healthy, right?” Well, I’m not.

Friends Remembered

Thank you for the wonderful memorial tribute to Connie Norman, my wife (“Legacy,” November 1996). One of my last conversations with Connie was about who will continue the fight. Many a morning in the last three years, I would see her rise above the fever and run to nail some councilmember. Now, if I can just figure out how to get some of her ashes into the Rose Garden at the White House, she’d be thrilled. Any ideas?

Editors: Bruce Norman was part of the ACT UP demonstration at the White House on October 13, 1996, where ashes of PWAs, including Connie Norman’s, were thrown over the White House fence.

Hits, Myths

Dominic Hamilton-Little’s “Sense of a Woman” (June/July 1996) was a rare/beautiful piece of writing. It is one of the happiest things I have read in a long time.

Thank you for the exceptional interview with Brian Grillo (“It’s a Goddamn Beautiful World,” October 1996). He is my inspiration and I appreciate your coverage of him. Keep up the good work.

We love you. There is not a week when I do not quote something to our support group from a current issue or a past issue. POZ has probably made our group of affected people some of the most knowledgeable patients in the area.

Congratulations on your splendid editorial “AIDS Mythology” (August/September 1996) reminding us all that hope is renewable.

My children belong to the first generation to grow up in the shadow of AIDS. They know this is a part of their lives, just as Vietnam was a part of my generation’s. They were as impressed as I was and passed the magazine on to their friends.