USA: Out front: HIV Prevention

In New York City, posters on Chelsea neighborhood phone booths announce "Buy Crystal, Get HIV Free!" as a nearby mobile teen health outreach unit dubbed "The HOTT Van" distributes condoms, counseling and HIV prevention information to the city's estimated 10,000-12,000 homeless LGBT youth.

In Miami, specialists log in to online chat rooms during daytime high-traffic periods, offering live answers to safer-sex questions. At night, outreach workers filter through the popular Miami Winter Party, handing out prevention pamphlets, drug abuse harm reduction information and counselor's cell numbers to circuit revelers.

In Cleveland, OH, a group of young men campaigns in oversized rubber penis suits, handing out condom-and-lube kits to patrons of gay bars. In Montana, outreach workers in plaid flannel and denim overalls hit the back country roads and farm lanes to bring the message to non-wired, rural LGBTs.

Nearly 25 years after the onset of the AIDS pandemic, HIV prevention campaigns have become a ubiquitous, even routine, aspect of gay male life. Some programs follow traditional models -- free condom distribution, individual counseling and street-level pamphleteering. Others deliberately provoke the media and the community with frank, eye-catching ads and controversial strategies to reach their target audience. Both approaches must successfully balance the risk of overexposure -- and therefore inattention -- with the continual need to reach out clearly and effectively. (To see some images from recent campaigns, click here.)

After February's "supervirus"

Following the announcement by New York City Department of Public Health officials that the man identified as having been infected with a rare, resistant strain of HIV was a crystal meth addict who had engaged in dozens of anonymous sexual encounters, current HIV prevention programs came under fire. Much of the fingerpointing came not from anti-gay conservatives, however, but from longtime LGBT leaders decrying current approaches as outdated, psychologically "soft," and increasingly ineffective.

"This reported new virus is a huge wake-up call," said activist and filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell in a recent roundtable that addressed the issue on this site. "I don't mind scare tactics from peers in the community -- better that than from the goddamned government. There needs to be serious cash for new education campaigns with new slogans that are tailored to the present situation. The recent crystal ads were a good start, but the messages have to be more specific to young homos' lives: If you become positive, you'll have a much more difficult time finding a boyfriend. If you become positive you'll have to get a job with health insurance for the rest of your life. If you're poor, you could die. If you continue to fuck around unsafely, you could die faster,"

Facing other challenges

Internal criticism is not the only problem facing HIV prevention programs. Crystal meth use, downlow culture, a rise in barebacking (and STD transmission rates) and, some say, a growing, misinformed apathy about HIV brought on by the successes of recent treatment medications all pose individual challenges. Staying "on message" often means addressing each problem individually, straining many organizations' resources -- at a time when federal resources are getting harder to come by.

The Bush administration has become more forthright in its push for abstinence-until-marriage programs over sexual education (resulting in de facto neglect for LGBTs), and has advocated severe cuts in funds to programs that advocate needle exchange, condom distribution, safer-sex education and minority outreach. The proposed 2006 budget, for instance, cuts $4 million from the Centers for Disease Control's HIV prevention and surveillance program and flat funds almost every other outreach program in the country -- while setting aside $38 million to abstinence programs, which do not include education about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted.) Conservative groups are decrying sexually explicit information, not just in schools and rural areas but in the national media as well.

Are HIV prevention programs still effective? What works and what doesn't -- and how are some programs adapting to community trends? Between the message and the infection, where's the prevention connection?

PlanetOut decided to investigate these questions by looking at some of the current campaigns specifically targeting LGBTs. In the next installment of this series, we begin where it all started -- on the streets -- tagging along with some young, sex-positive prevention volunteers to talk to people one-on-one about HIV.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: 07 March 2005
Source: Gay.com
Website: http://www.gay.com