Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Miami Herald - Friday, June 18, 1999
William T. McGee, Herald Staff Writer
A producer from Good Morning, America gathered commentary Thursday morning during a community meeting at the city's Police Outreach Center at the Broward Mall.
Ricki Goldberg, a GMA producer, spent two hours taping health-care workers discussing prevention and a 66-year-old woman with HIV sharing her plight at the meeting of the Plantation Seniors And Law Enforcement Together organization.
Afterward, Goldberg interviewed several of the 40 seniors who attended. The material will air next week as part of a story on how HIV is affecting South Florida seniors. The day hasn't been decided, but it will run during the show's regular slot between 7 and 9 a.m., Monday through Friday, Goldberg said.
"We're hoping it runs next week," Goldberg said.
The story follows Time magazine's June 6 cover story on seniors as one of the fastest-growing HIV-infected populations, focusing on South Florida. According to the Time story, seniors account for 14 percent of AIDS cases in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, compared with 10 percent nationally.
"We followed up on that," Goldberg said. "We made a bunch of calls. We've interviewed people from Kendall to here."
John Gargotta, the group's president, arranged a presentation from the Senior HIV Intervention Project, a state health program. Gargotta is also supervisor of the HIV group.
"We as a health care community have never addressed seniors and HIV," Gargotta said. "We initially thought it was the gay community, but it's really widespread. It affects all of us."
Shirley Sumner, chairwoman of the Broward County Triad Leadership Committee, the umbrella group for the Broward SALT chapters, pleaded into the camera for more government funding for HIV and AIDS-related educational programs.
"The increases [in seniors with HIV and AIDS] have to be stopped and it can only be stopped with education," she said. "To lose now, to stop it, is very bad for the community."
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