Celebration is a contradictory word to use when recognizing Dec. 1 as the 25th annual World AIDS Day.
More than 25 million people have died worldwide from AIDS since 1981, and although the stigma and social ramifications of the disease have changed over time, the numbers of infected and dead only continues to grow.
“We are on the brink of a disaster internationally,” said Jim Robinson, an educational speaker for the HIV Alliance in Eugene who is living with the disease today and has seen its effects in the past.
“I’ve personally known over 300 people who have died” from AIDS, he said.
Everyday, 6,000 young people, between 15-24 years old, are infected with HIV internationally, which represents half of all new HIV infections worldwide. The majority of those who contract HIV before they are 25 will be killed by AIDS before they are 35, according to the international HIV and AIDS Charity AVERT.
University-age students are at high risk for contracting and spreading the disease, because many don’t know they have it or refuse to practice safe sex, Robinson said. In recognition of World AIDS Day this year, Robinson wanted to bring an educational benefit to the University.
Tom McConnell, an Oregon HIV Care Coalition member, agreed to bring his 48-foot HIV/AIDS timeline to campus to educate students on the history of the disease.
“The vast majority of the information was new to the average person on the street,” McConnell said of the three-part timeline he created five years ago in Portland. It has been a continual project that he is still adding onto.
The three sections of the timeline include facts about the national and international aspects, examples of the disease in the media and information on Oregon’s AIDS history.
“People with HIV and AIDS were really looked on like lepers,” McConnell said of the negative social stigma associated with the disease 25 years ago. That was possibly around the same time he contracted HIV, he said.
McConnell didn’t know he was HIV positive until 1989, but because of blood samples he had given for a earlier Hepatitis C study he knew he was positive as early as 1978. At that time HIV testing was not readily available.
After the increased amount of deaths in the 1980s, there was “a slight shift in passion” toward those with the disease, McConnell said, although the heavy stigma around HIV/AIDS cycles.
Today, the disease is hitting minorities hard, he said.
“It has crossed all lines,” Robinson said. “It’s important to get into peoples’ heads – it’s not just a gay disease or a needle disease.”
AIDS is “the number one cause of death of African American men between the ages of 19 and 40-something,” Robinson said, adding that these are the type of statistics that most people don’t know.
“I think the University has a long line of celebration and commemoration on World AIDS Day,” said Adam Howard, the University visual arts coordinator for the Cultural Forum.
Nevertheless, Oregon as a state was slow to recognize and educate about HIV/AIDS, McConnell said, although the state “proved to be a leader” quickly, establishing national precedents on programs, such as the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, by using federally issued money to pay for insurance premiums instead of individual prescription costs.
The timeline will be on display all day in the courtyard by the EMU food court.
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