Mailbox

Focus Factor
“Virgin Vaccine” (June 2006) portrayed pro-family organizations, such as Focus on the Family, as reveling in the suffering of those with sexually transmitted infections. Nothing is further from the truth. Abstinence educators and Focus on the Family support primary health prevention: the practice of the best health behaviors to eliminate the risk of infection. Optimal health practices and the elimination of suffering is our goal in advocating abstinence before marriage.

Talking In Class
Being positive, I was asked by someone at my local AIDS service organization to talk about HIV to a class at Colorado State University. My case manager thought it was a good idea, and she was right. The experience was like really cheap therapy. I don’t know who got more out of it: the class or me. The subject of AIDS needs to come up more in everyday conversations. If someone is embarrassed, then that person needs to deal with it in his or her own way—but don’t stop talking about it.

Home Of The Brave
I was disheartened to read in “A Growing Concern” (June 2006) that the writer’s HIV positive friend, a preacher, won’t pray for other positive people in the U.S. because of “how lucky we all are here.” As an Apache Indian, I have been coinfected with AIDS and hep C for three and a half years. I have lived on the streets awaiting housing, been shunned by my own people and been told I deserve to die. How can she call this “lucky”? It’s only by the grace of God that I’ve managed to survive. While Native Americans with AIDS continue to be overlooked, I pray our country will remember us as we continue to fight for prevention, education, housing and services.