More than 'Magic' needed to fight AIDS

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For forums, classes and other Fi, contact the Socialist Action Since Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced on Nov. 7 that he was retiring from professional basketball because he had contracted HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), information about the deadly virus has been widespread. Johnson at 32-years-old had played for the Los Angeles Lakers for 12 years and was considered a superstar, thus attracting numerous television advertisements and name recognition.

Magic has been hailed for speaking out against AIDS. He told a press conference that he would use his celebrity status to help educate young people, especially young Blacks, about the need to practice "safe sex"

Johnson later explained in an article in Sports Illustrated that he contracted the HIV virus by not practicing safe sex: "I confess that after I arrived in L.A. in 1979, I did my best to accommodate as many women as I could-most of them through unprotected sex."

Johnson does not yet have AIDS. But most people who test positive for the human immunedeficiency virus, HIV, begin showing symptoms of AIDS within 10 years on average.

The big furor over Magic's situation has surely helped in the campaign to educate the public on AIDS. President Bush announced that Johnson would be appointed to his AIDS commission. Calls to health groups by individuals have significantly increased.

The obvious question that begs to be asked is why has it taken a prominent person to become a victim of HIV for all this publicity? Bush, the advertisers, and the big-business media now hailing Magic all knew before Magic's announcement that once a person tests positive for HIV virus, AIDS and death are inevitable. Yet Congress plans to reduce by some $14 million the $400 million 1992 budget for AIDS education, testing, and counseling.

Governmental inaction Why the government's inaction? Because the primary victims of the disease are not heterosexual men or the well-to-do. The main victims in the United States are gay men and impoverished intravenous drug users.

Thus it is not true, as Magic and others are saying, that all sections of the population are equally at risk. AIDS can only be transmitted through blood or semen being brought into direct contact with the bloodstream. Otherwise, the virus dies quickly outside the body. Gay men get infected primarily during anal intercourse. Drug users get it by unsterilized needles. Of the 196,000 AIDS cases, only 6 percent contracted it through heterosexual sex.

(The exception is in Africa, where—according to the World Health Organization-some 7 million people are thought to be infected with HIV. Most have contracted it by heterosexual sex. These Africans are poor, lack any resources to fight the disease, and get little support from the rich capitalist countries. In some urban areas, one-third of the adult population is infected with HIV.)

According to the Federal Centers for Disease Control, as of the end of September, 195,718 people in the United States have been infected with AIDS. Since 1981, 126,159 people have died from AIDS-related illness. Health offcials estimate that another one million Americans have contracted HIV. A majority of the victims are male homosexuals. Nearly one-third are intravenous drug users who share needles. And over 40 percent are Blacks and Latinos.

A majority of women with AIDS are Black and Latino, who are infected sexually by a husband, boyfriend, or casual sex partner. Some 80 percent of children bor with AIDS are Black or Latino.

The government's refusal to devote massive resources to assist those with the virus and to help find a cure for AIDS reflects who the victims are. The government doesn't give a damn about gays, drug users, and the poor.

Calls for mandatory HIV testing is no solution either. The issue isn't about who has AIDS. It's about developing a program to help its victims and finding a By Malik Miah cure. Mandatory testing will be only used to scapegoat victims, take away their dignity, deny them healthcare, and make them pariahs.

The goverment's inaction also reflects its opposition to improving the healthcare of all Americans. Spending for healthcare in general is down. Those with healthcare pay more for less.

What can be done?

What solutions should the labor movement and other progressive-minded people be advocating?

First, the government should take the necessary steps to find a cure for AIDS. It should devote massive resources to assist all victims—especially the poor, who can't afford treatment. Currently, many people with HIV infections do not qualify for Medicaid (the federal-state insurance program) until they are declared "disabled" because they've developed AIDS outright. What a Catch 22! Those who need care should get it, whatever their financial situation. self-contained organizations ... should be rejected."

As to Halaby's claim that "artists do not scare the bourgeoisie," I would suggest she study the history of Diego Rivera's mural painted on the walls of the RCA building in New York City in 1933. After Rivera had added the face of Lenin to his mural, Nelson Rockefeller Jr., wrote him: "It seems to me that his portrait, appearing in this mural, might very easily offend a great many people. ... As much as I dislike to do so, I am afraid we must ask you to substitute the face of some unknown man where Lenin's face now appears."

This Rivera refused to do. The following February, the mural was removed from the wall "by the process of smashing it to powder!" Rage is so much stronger when animated by fear!

Franklin Balch, Baltimore, Md.

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Second, government should provide free needles to drug users. Where such programs exist, fewer people are being infected by HIV. Drug rehabilitation programs should be provided free and without fear of criminal prosecution. Drugs should be decriminalized.

Sex education is also important, including free condoms. But the Bush administration recently canceled two planned surveys of sexual behavior that would have helped the fight against sexually transmitted diseases.

What's needed is not only a Magic campaign against AIDS but a drive to take profit out of medical care. AIDS victims should get free medicine financed by the government. Many people can't afford the drugs now being offered to prolong life until a cure is found. Health care should be provided to all who need it.

These are the first steps needed to fight AIDS and to improve the health of all Americans. The labor movement is for a national health program. It needs to make the battle against AIDS a central plank in that fight.

Spring Adams Dear editors, Spring Adam was not killed by her father, who impregnated her (as Sylvia Weinstein explains in your November issue), simply because he knew she was pregnant. It's worse.

Spring was past the first trimester when she realized she was pregnant. No doctor in Idaho could be found to do a second trimester abortion, so arrangements were made for her and her mother to come to Oregon so she could get an abortion.

Because of Idaho's consent laws, she needed to notify both parents. Her father tried to persuade her to carry her pregnancy to term. But the sixth-grader protested that she was not ready to be a mother. Her father then shot her to prevent her from getting an abortion in Oregon.

C.R.S., Oakland, Calif.

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