A screening of the documentary AIDS: Dangerous Silence, filmed in Buffalo by the local TV station PBS-WNED, was shown this past Wednesday in an effort to bring awareness about HIV/AIDS to UB and the surrounding community.
The cause is of importance to this area in particular, according to Dr. Osehoute Okojie, a local family physician.
"Outside of New York City, Erie County is the second highest case rate of HIV," said Dr. Osehoute Okojie, a family physician.
The film also addressed the stigma that exists toward HIV-positive people.
"People don't think about [the] implications of interactions with people who are HIV positive. They aren't aware of the stigma that surrounds HIV and how the media really affects that," said Kristine Huber, assistant director of Sub Board 1 Inc. (SBI) Health Education, who sponsored the screening.
The effects of the overall lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS and the social effects of these diseases are evident in Western New York, the panel said.
"Kids are having sex - unprotected sex - at a younger and younger age. They need to be educated," Okojie said.
Every year, over 40,000 people are diagnosed a year with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and half of them are 25 years old or younger, according to the film.
"AIDS is an equal opportunity destroyer - of communities, of individuals and of families," said Ron Silverio, a former Catholic priest and current president and chief executive officer of AIDS Community Services of WNY. "This epidemic...will not end from silence."
The screening was followed by a panel discussion with members of the media and HIV researchers.
Kathleen Pratt, a person who has been living with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) for 25 years, spoke at the event as an AIDS educator.
"This isn't what you expected to see, was it? I don't look sick. I don't look like I have HIV. I look normal," Pratt said after the screening.
Another person who spoke at the event was John Maxwell, the director of special projects for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Maxwell explained the stigma surrounding the disease.
"When HIV first came to North America, it was the three H's: hemophiliacs, hetians and homosexuals. These communities were already marginalized and the virus just made it more so," he said.
Religion has also played a role in the development of the stigma, according to Pastor Germaine Hurst, who started an AIDS ministry at the Greater Emmanuel Temple Church in Buffalo.
"On one extreme, we can be the greatest love institution in the world, but on the other end we can at times be critical and judgmental," Hurst said. "We've heard things like 'God is getting on homosexuals because it is an abomination.'"
Dr. Winston Husbands, co-chair of the African and Caribbean Council on HIV/AIDS in Ontario, believes the HIV stigma continues because there is reluctance in engaging this issue openly and actively.
"Who wants to acknowledge that this is an issue if HIV is more or less blamed on your community?" Husbands asked.
UB seniors Jessica Kim and Sierra Gansert, two supervisors for the AIDS coalition under SBI Health Education, created this event to increase awareness about HIV and AIDS.
"Why is it that HIV has a stigma even though it is less susceptible to being transferred, compared to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like genital herpes or Chlamydia? If death wasn't a factor in the minds of the public, will HIV eventually become what genital herpes has become today?" Kim asked.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
