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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 29, 1998)
r~ CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: (541)346-5511 E-MAIL: ADDRESS: Oregon Daily Emerald P.O. BOX 3159 odeOoregon. uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www.uoregon.edu/~ode Perspectives EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Nicole Kreuger Where is media attention for HIV test? The Viagra-obsessed press have almost ignored a 10-minute test for HIV news coverage and obscene amounts of advertising space in nearly every medium available. Most of the atten tion is justified; the pill has pleased thousands of American men, and probably their partners, by creating a iagra has really made it big. The anti-impotence pill has received extensive Jonas Allen new-tound sexual revolution. But isn’t sex supposed to be taboo in the '90s? Based on how much we hear about sexually transmitted dis eases, I sure thought so. We all know about uonor rhea and syphilis. There are televi sion commercials about herpes, thanks to the folks at MTV. And the big two, HIV and AIDS, have be come household words. So it struck me as odd that while people were taking long, hard looks at Viagra, one of the year’s biggest sex-related stories got lost. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked med ical clinics across the country to abandon current HIV tests and adopt a new, 10-minute test developed by Murex Corporation in Norcross, Ga. According to an article in the San Antonio Express-News, the SUDS HIV-1 test is the only rapid test ap proved by the Food and Drug Ad ministration, although several oth ers are waiting for approval. The motivation behind the 10 minute test was to avoid having peo ple not show up once their results were in. Patients must wait two weeks or more for results using cur rent tests for HTV, the virus that causes AIDS. So why are only a few clinics us ing the rapid test? Because most of the media whacked the story for more hard news on the anti-impo tence pill. Representatives at White Bird Cri sis Intervention Services didn’t even know about the new test. White Bird is a Eugene organization that admin isters free HIV tests for local resi dents. “I would be concerned that the 10 minute test might give people a false sense of security," said Gina Tor mohlen, the administrator for White Bird’s HIV testing program. She’s right. Current HIV proce dures test patients for infections that have occurred at least three to six months prior to the test. Any infec tion that may have occurred more recently than that cannot be detect ed. In other words, if people used the 10-minute test after a wild weekend, their results would not tell the whole story. The new test is faster, but it can only test for infections that occurred prior to the same three- to six-month time period. Still, if people acted responsibly after their test (and we all know they would, right?), why isn’t the test be ing used in every publicly funded clinic in America? Well, there’s always tbj&argument that the new test yields false posi tives, but so does the current proce dure. “The test we use picks up certain proteins that resemble HIV strains, but they aren’t actually HIV ... so we’re used to false positives,” Tor mohlen said. “That’s just something that comes along with the test being very sensitive. "But false positives can be retest ed; false negatives can be deadly,” she said. Which is why this news should have gotten more coverage. HTV and AIDS are nothing to mess around with. People should be able to find out early whether they have HIV. Apparently the media don’t care. Look what happened when the new HIV test came out: It got pushed un der the covers while Viagra rose to the top of the media’s most wanted list. The SUDS HIV-1 test can let peo ple know almost immediately if they have been infected with the vims that causes AIDS. According to the Express-News article, 25 percent of those who test positive for HIV nev er find out because they don’t come back for their results. That means more than 8,000 HIV positive people per year could final ly learn their true health condition, according to CDC estimates. Tormohlen said the percentage of no-shows is much lower at White Bird. She estimated 5 to 10 percent of their test results go unclaimed, but that number may be skewed by people who lose their assigned num ber and have to be re-tested. “People also may not come back for the same reason they don’t want to come in — they are scared to find out,” she said. I don’t blame them; I would be, too. But if the media don’t give the 10-minute test any publicity, the spread of this epidemic could be even scarier. Jonas Allen is a columnist for the Emer ald. His work appears on alternate Wednesdays. His views do not neces sarily represent those of the newspaper. Drawing Board TT75T 7)BAA- C4uxaM<M- Me4-t&K- : «s—v this PlACt HAS Sure changed *nce 5INATFA AwmveO.. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Williams is wrong The Oregon Citizens Alliance’s Barry Williams has once again graced the pages of the Emerald with his brand of the truth. He wants us to believe that he speaks for the majority of Americans. Certainly, if we believed this, it would make it easier for him to advance his views. Williams says the majority of Americans iden tify themselves as Christian. This is probably true, but I personally know Christians who prac tice the compassion, love and inclusion taught by Jesus Christ rather than buying into divisive theological arguments based on a selective inter pretation of biblical passages. And, even if the majority of Americans did agree with him, which I don’t believe for a moment is the case, that wouldn’t make his positions right. In the not too distant past, majorities believed in slavery and the subjugation of women, and biblical pas sages were used to justify these views as well. As a part of the queer "community” (which is at least as diverse as the Christian “communi ty”), Williams’ views offend me. I think every one has a right to believe what they will. Indeed, we could not stop people from thinking, nor would that be desirable. At the same time, I think it is important to challenge bigoted and hateful views like those of the OCA when they appear. It’s important to say, “Williams, you don’t speak for all Americans or Christians and I believe your views are wrong.” Sean Brient Architecture Quality counts The quality of what I am taught is more im portant than the color of the person teaching it. I’m sure a lot of people would agree. Sure, it would be nice if there were more minority in structors here, but I think the obvious lack of mi nority students is a little more pressing. Tana Charette EMS/Psychology Reality for teens I enjoyed reading about the fantasy world that Barry Williams (ODE, May 20) has constructed for himself upon consultation of surveys pub lished in such erudite journals as Parade maga zine. On Williams’ planet, “nine out of 10 teens don’t drink or smoke, six out of 10 don’t approve of premarital sex ..." etc., and all, I imagine, are above average. On planet Earth, other studies paint a slightly different picture of teenage life. For example, in a 1997 survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 36 percent of teenagers smoke cigarettes, 22 percent smoke cigars and 9 percent use smokeless tobacco. In an analysis published in the May 8 issue of Sci ence, a representative nationwide sample of 1,729 young men between the ages of 15 and 19 were questioned on a variety of topics. Sixty four percent of them acknowledged that they had vaginal, anal or oral intercourse with a fe male, 69 percent drank alcohol last year (19 per cent did so weekly), 35 percent had sexual inter course while drunk or high, and 12 percent had carried a gun in the last 30 days. So much for Williams’ Lake Wobegon, but he is entitled to his fantasy. Williams suffers from the fact that he is a fun damentalist Christian, a religion that is not known to encourage critical thinking or a ratio nal world view. When I learned that the little Darwin fish with feet symbols really do irritate these people, I rushed right out and bought two. Now, all I have to do is wait for that “giant Chris tian fish" to devour me, Toyota van and all. Yikes! Jim Remington Physics Thumbs /I L TO THE CONSTITUTION COURT: Considering the number of com plaints they had to sift through, the court justices made a solid decision re garding theASUO elections. The court acknowledged problems with the process but de clined to inflict the high cost and in convenience of an other election on students; instead, it made the reason able request that elections rules be reviewed, some thing we have long advocated. While it certainly wasn’t flawless, the court’s decision was an ef fective way of deal ing with a difficult mess. TO TWO-HEADED GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS DEAL ING WITH BLACK FOOTED FERRETS: Long thought ex tinct, the extremely rare ferret was re discovered and made the subject of extensive federal programs designed to save endangered species. While this is admirable and re cent studies show ing ferret popula tions on the rise are welcome news, the government contin ues to destroy ferret populations even as it struggles to save them. As long as the government condones and helps in efforts to poison prairie dogs, the primary food source of ferrets, taxpayer money will be used to reintro duce ferrets even as it is used to destroy the ecosystem into which the creatures are being released.
