In
the fall of 1997 newspapers all over the U.S. and in other parts of the
world reported about Nushawn Williams, the HIV-infected man who
knowingly passed on the virus that causes AIDS to at least nine others
in New York state. Initial media reports of this shocking tragedy
focused on his criminal background, his involvement with drug dealing
and the vulnerability of his victims, many of whom were runaway girls
from fatherless families, easy pickings for anyone bringing a little
"love" and attention. Williams had sex with girls as young as 13 years
old, often trading it for drugs.
The
stereotypes of a deviant, disease-ridden criminal and of vulnerable
girls "from the wrong side of the tracks" might lead some to think that
the Williams case is unique and that casual sex is still a relatively
harmless "rite of passage." Such people would do well to consider the
words of Alan Mayer, an HIV-infected architect, who wrote an op-ed
piece with chilling implications in the New York Times (November 15,
1997, "The Irresponsibility That Spreads AIDS"). Mr. Mayer writes that:
"most HIV-positive people I
have encountered, regardless of their social standing, do not
voluntarily disclose their social status to potential partners. Indeed,
even people in long-term, committed relationships lie about their
status...They remain silent not because they are evil, but because it
is difficult to tell the truth."
Mr.
Mayer goes on to explain that prominent organizations which conduct
well-funded campaigns in "AIDS prevention" will "not recommend or
encourage full disclosure." He tells of calling an AIDS hot line where
he was advised to "'experiment'- telling some partners of my HIV status
while remaining silent with others. "In this way I could decide which
was more comfortable for me."
More
disturbing is Mr. Mayer's statement that the U.S. "Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention will only 'suggest that you might want to
consider informing your partner,' a hot-line counselor told me last
week." Counselors at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Mr. Mayer
writes, "said it was their job to dispense information, not moral or
ethical recommendations. and, again, that I must do what makes me feel
comfortable." (italics added for emphasis)
It would be
unsurprising to find this emphasis on one's own feelings and "what
makes me feel comfortable" in the reveries of would-be song writers and
some teen magazines, but in statements from the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control? Isn't CDC supposed to be the source of unvarnished
scientific truth, of the highest standards of health and disease
prevention?
There isn't room in this column to discuss the
politicization of science and information that unfortunately has seeped
into government proclamations and recommendations about health, (for
more information, see Condom Nation: Blind Faith, Bad Science) , but
lest one accept the idea that "dispensing information, not moral or
ethical recommendations" will be enough to stop the spread of AIDS and
other dangerous sexually transmitted diseases (see The Reality of
Sexually Transmitted Diseases), consider the fact that Chautauqua
County, where most of Nushawn Williams' victims lived, has won national
awards for sex education programs beginning at the second-grade level.
In an op-ed column by Gina Dalfonzo ("Sex ed without values is
worthless", The Record, Hackensack, NJ, November 7, 1997) regional
health coordinator Lynn Delevan is quoted as saying:
"we
have done an excellent job in giving knowledge, but we clearly need to
do more with the children about their attitudes and their values...
This is a community that has been on the top of this subject and it
still isn't enough."
As Ms. Dalfonzo, points out,
"these students could have passed an exam on how to use condoms and
birth-control pills. They knew all they needed to know, except what
mattered most."
The idea that the science of health can be
severed from ethical considerations is a glaring blindness of our age.
Those of us living in an "enlightened" scientific era of computers and
cell phones look back at the times of the Bubonic Plague in Europe as
the "Dark Ages." We might want to start looking in the mirror.
According
to UNAIDS estimates, within a few years the number of people infected
with the AIDS virus will surpass the estimated 75 million who died from
the "Black (Bubonic) Plague" in 14th century Europe. We all hope that
scientists will find a definitive cure for AIDS, but whatever
scientists do, nothing removes the stark reality that the AIDS
pandemic, as a behaviorally spread disease, was and is largely
avoidable. Isn't it logical that the first condition of preventing the
spread of this disease, or any other, would be being truthful- with
ourselves, with others? All the science in the world can't save us from
our own deceptionof ourselves, of others.
Instead of wishing
and waiting for a "magic bullet" to save us, we might want to reexamine
the connection between public health and ethics, and talk with young
people honestly about personal well-being and morality, and other
dreaded "m" words like "monogamy" and even, gasp, "marriage." You'd be
surprised how many young people will listen.
Of course if we
want to talk to young people about these issues, we have to look at our
own lives. After all, the betrayals of the poor victims of Nushawn
Williams started long before this smooth-talking drug dealer ever
showed up at their doors.
If the girls who had sex with him
acted foolishly and self-destructively, weren't they emulating the
patterns of uncommitted, heart-less and soul-less sex and non-existent,
absent fathers many of them had grown up with?
The Paradise promised by advocates of the "Sexual Revolution" is proving to be a Graveyard. How many people have to die before our culture wakes up,
realizes what is really most important in life, and stops making
excuses for selfish, destructive behavior. What could be more healthy
than that?
