Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner; Monday, Dec. 2, 1996
Venise Wagner of the Examiner Staff
In Rome, taxi drivers distributed safe-sex leaflets. Across Thailand, gas stations offered free condoms. And in New York's Times Square, an electronic billboard flashed the message: "Every second another person is infected with HIV."
Sunday marked the ninth annual World AIDS Day at a time when newly developed protease inhibitor drugs are giving hope to people with AIDS and HIV. But even so, the World Health Organization is reporting an accelerating death toll: Nearly a quarter of the 6.4 million AIDS deaths occurred in the last year.
Nearly 3.1 million people - most under 25 - were infected with HIV this year. That means 22.6 million now have the virus that causes AIDS.
So Anthony Turney couldn't let the optimism overshadow the truth: People are still dying.
Turney, executive director of the NAMES Project Foundation, the organization responsible for the AIDS quilt, spoke at ceremonies marking the day in the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Main Library.
"Notwithstanding the accelerating breakthroughs in basic research about HIV, AIDS continues to claim lives in this city, in our country, and around the world," Turney said.
"The great strides we in this country have taken in research and care and public policy haven't yet translated into greater chances of survival for the vast majority of people who are living with HIV on this planet."
At the grove dedication, participants held a healing circle in which people spoke or whispered the names of loved ones who died from the disease. Later they planted a 100-year-old Oregon camellia tree and tossed wildflower seeds throughout the grove.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, one of the supporters of the bill that gave the 15-acre wooded dell the same status as Mount Rushmore, spoke with guarded optimism.
"We have made AIDS a nonpartisan issue," she said. "Our challenge is to make sure those (drugs) are there for everyone."
Bob Hattoy, a White House spokesman who delivered a message from President Clinton, had a message of his own.
As a gay man with AIDS, he said that establishing memorials and places where people can heal spiritually and emotionally is just as important as fighting for equal access to drugs.
"This is a loving, fabulous changing memorial," he said. "We need to allow this to happen in our lives."
Back at the Koret Auditorium, Chris Sandoval of the Multicultural AIDS Resource Center of California shared both the cynicism and hope he has developed over the last 15 years watching friends and hospice patients die from AIDS.
"There was a time when communities of faith committed spiritual genocide," he said, casting people with AIDS out of churches and other religious centers. He saw people committing "familial apartheid when families pushed us out of our own homes."
Although some have softened their attitudes, Sandoval now worries that poor people with the disease will be left behind. He wonders if enough of the money is meeting the needs of the homeless, immigrants and those in the streets.
"We're not questioning the emphasis we place on condoms," he said. "The primary intervention should be the community creating trusting relationships with marginalized people. Homeless people want shelter and compassion . . . that is more important (to them) than an informational brochure or condoms."
Examiner news services contributed to this report.
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