Silvestre talk highlights AIDS education

Dr. Tony Silvestre stepped behind the podium and announced that in his briefcase he carries… Dr. Tony Silvestre stepped behind the podium and announced that in his briefcase he carries a list of 130 names – people he once knew who died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

This was the opening to his Wednesday night lecture, “A retrospective and global perspective of the HIV/AIDS pandemic,” organized by the Rainbow Alliance.

Dr. Silvestre’s lecture, one of many lectures and activities planned this week in recognition of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, not only provided a thorough background on the virus itself, but explained the underlying social factors that allowed the disease to become as prevalent as it is today.

Dr. Silvestre is an associate professor in the department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology in the graduate school of Public Health and has studied HIV since 1982, when the virus was first identified. He is also a co-investigator of the Pitt Men’s Study, a study of HIV in gay and bisexual men in the region that attempts to understand HIV more thoroughly: who gets infected, the long-term health effects of the virus and the impact of various medications on those infected, for example.

The study began in 1984, according to Silvestre, and sampled 3,000 local gay and bisexual men.

There is more, however, to the AIDS pandemic than the physical symptoms it causes. The virus is itself a symptom of deeper social problems.

When the headline “Mystery Disease AIDS Tied to 3 Deaths Here” ran in a local Pittsburgh paper in 1983, most were quick to dismiss it, Silvestre said.

Condoms were used only as a form of birth control at the time, no one considered sexually transmitted infections to be a danger. Once the disease began to spread, jumping from 1,000 cases in February of 1983 to 4,000 cases in April of 1984, Silvestre said, the denial turned to fear.

The U.S. Government, with Ronald Reagan in the Whitehouse, remained silent until AIDS had claimed 20,000 lives and spread to 113 countries.

“AIDS shows the failures and fractures in our healthcare system,” said Dr. Silvestre.

AIDS infects minority populations most heavily. In Washington, D.C., for example, African Americans constitute 57 percent of the total population, but a much higher 83 percent of the infected population. African American women in the same area make up 90 percent of the new female cases.

Silvestre also focused his talk on education.

He asked the audience how many planned on working with people in their careers and nearly everyone raised a hand. Then he asked who had been trained to deal with AIDS. Two hands went up.

“At this University we’re educating, every year, teachers, psychologists, social workers … What are they learning about sexual health?” Silvestre said.

Strong institutions with influence on young people stay silent, Silvestre said. Churches and other religious meeting places and schools have so much sway with the young community, the ones who will run everything one day, and yet they say nothing, he added.

Silvestre said ignorance is one major cause of the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS and we must “educate ourselves to educate other people.”

In 2007, approximately 33.2 million people worldwide were living with HIV, and more than 2 million people died from AIDS, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the United States, an estimated 1 million persons are living with HIV, an estimated 25 percent of whom have no idea they are infected and may continue to unwittingly spread it to others.

“We can talk about AIDS and the disaster it is all we want, but the underlying factors that let it get out of control are still what they were,” Silvestre said.

The Rainbow Alliance had planned to hand out 2,000 condoms in the week leading up to World AIDS Day – they gave out way more in only half the time.

That is the sort of thing Dr. Silvestre urges.

The Rainbow Alliance is a student organization that is highly active in sexual health education and politics.

The Alliance tries to incorporate sexual health education into most of their activities, President Aaron Arnold said.

They were responsible for organizing Dr. Silvestre’s speech and also had representatives from the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force lead an educational session on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, complete with demonstrations on various contraceptives.

They try to host at least one such session per semester, Arnold said.

They also distribute information about HIV/AIDS and STD testing as often as possible.

“We distribute copies of the testing hours and locations for various non-profit agencies in Pittsburgh,” Arnold said.

“Let me let you in on a little secret – you guys have a lot of power,” Dr. Silvestre said.