The Bay Area Reporter - Friday, April 30, 1999

Having suffered through this epidemic for nearly two decades now, we've cheered many incremental breakthroughs that gradually (maddeningly so, in fact) extended the life expectancies of PWAs. Step by faltering step, science has chipped away at the opportunistic infections that once killed our friends by the dozens. It was 10 years ago that we first heard a doctor flatly state at an AIDS benefit that there was no longer "any reason" for patients to die of pneumocystis, and he must have been right: even the word, which had become part of everyday writing in gay journalism, is now almost unfamiliar. So much so, honestly, that we had to pause for a second to remember how it's spelled û a lapse in synapse that makes us very happy (unless it's the onset of senility, which will make us unhappy but probably not for long).

Time has also slowed the other big opportunistic killer, Kaposi's sarcoma. It hasn't been conquered, but the signs are all encouraging. MAC, CMV, Epstein-Barr: these viral infections once tore through our community like wildfires through the Everglades, but now they seem manageable, if not curable.

Indeed, it seems only one really virulent opportunistic infection still rages unchecked û greed û and officials may be getting a handle on that soon.

As Bob Roehr reports on page one of this issue, three Washington lawmakers are asking for the General Accounting Office to examine AIDS spending, to see if the money allocated is getting to its intended recipients. Normally we are suspicious of those House members û Dick Armey famously referred to his gay colleague Barney Frank as "Barney Fag," so we can't imagine we'll ever be good friends with him û but as grandpa used to say, "my enemy's enemy is my friend," and in this case the enemy is unnecessarily squandered money.

This is a topic that some readers may feel we take too seriously, but after all the funerals in the last 18 years, plus the hospital visits, the assisted suicides, and the assisted survivals, we can't act as though misappropriated AIDS money is no big deal. And we invite anyone who has convinced themselves that it doesn't matter to try proofreading the heartbreaking obituaries we get. One afternoon we started crying over the last line of one obit û "I miss you, my onliest Pooh" û and continued intermittently until midnight. Not because we knew the deceased; that's the point. Once someone is lost to this virus we'll never have the chance to share their favorite jokes and songs and recipes. And if that loss can be attributed to money being unavailable for the necessities, when it is being squandered on frivolities, we think that's as reprehensible as cold-blooded murder.

So although the people spearheading this drive for fiscal accountability aren't our first line defenders, they nevertheless deserve praise for their action. It is an encouraging first step in eradicating one of the last, fatal, scourges to attack people with HIV whose defenses are down.
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