Tom McSorley | Guest Editorial

Exterior of City Heights Apartments (Photo by Gregory May)

We are the 4 Friends, people at 4 AIDS service organizations in San Diego, and we have been in this fight for almost all of the 30 years of HIV and AIDS. We need to speak from our hearts, although what we have to say may be different from others today. We are grateful for the progress but the road is still long. We can tell you first-hand stories of the devastation we see each day and share our hope that we will work together for a world with no AIDS.

The first notion of AIDS as the “gay plague” set the course for fear and division. We had another group to hate. We were deceived into believing that the rest of us were safe.

Many things said in the beginning we now know to be untrue. In 1982 we only knew it was killing those who lived “the lifestyle of male homosexuals.” In 1983, Assistant Secretary of Health Edward Brant said, “There is no reason for panic among the general public.” In 1984, Margaret Heckler, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services said, “We hope to have a vaccine ready for testing in approximately 2 years.”

In November of this year we set a record of 34 million people infected. It is not progress when 8,500 people die and thousands more become infected every day. Not numbers; these are real people: our brothers and sisters, our parents and friends. If they were dying from any other disease at this rapid pace would we still think of progress or would we feel like we are running in place?

Today we will hear about the progress of drugs, yet the cost of medication is more than what a minimum wage worker will make, let alone pay. This may be progress for drug company shareholders but not so much for those who die. Has the “gay plague” now become a solid business model with a growing clientele?

We fall short providing for basic human needs: Housing, assistance, transportation to doctors, medicine, drug treatment and support. Is it funding we lack or the will to care? A client came by last week, devastated because after waiting for years, he would not get housing because he was not considered sick enough. How sick and how poor do we have to be before we help each other?

Regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or country of birth, AIDS is a real threat. Reducing the fear, eliminating hate and providing the basics, including medicine, is the only chance we have of ending this disease and saving 34 million now and not millions more.

We all have something we can do to end this tragedy.

We must not leave this disease for our children and theirs. For me it is personal, as it should be for us all. I’d rather do more to end this, than face that fateful day when my son comes to me to say, “Dad, I have AIDS.”

Tom McSorley is the director of resource development at Townspeople and is writing on behalf of the 4 Friends: Townspeople, Being Alive, Stepping Stone and Special Delivery. To learn more about their work in San Diego and to get involved, visit worldaidsdaysd.com.