| HIV/AIDS has not gone away. Among those most aware are staff members at NJCRI, which for over 20 years has been providing free services for clients in Newark. (Disclosure: I previously served as NJCRI Executive Director.)
Their needle/syringe exchange program serves as one portal for injection drug users to get added services. Counselor Paul Hidalgo says over 2,300 clients have come to exchange dirty needles (which can transmit HIV and Hep C) for clean ones and that increasingly clients are availing themselves of additional services such as drug treatment, HIV testing, counseling, and the drop-in center. Substance Use Director Bob Baxter points out that increasingly the large majority of clients at this Newark facility are suburban, white, under 26 years of age who started raiding their parents' medicine cabinet, moved to purchasing expensive oxycontin, and as their financial means decreased began sniffing and then injecting less expensive heroin. Strangely enough some believe if they are not gay they can't get HIV. Those African-American and Hispanics who attend the clinic are typically 40 to 60 years of age and long-time users, whereas, the youth in this demographic group seem to have learned the injection dangers from their elders. An important bill in the legislature would legalize over the counter pharmay needle/syringe sales.
Danielle Bush, Manager of Counseling & Testing, sent a letter to Mayor Booker pleading for his help in increasing awareness among Newark residents on the need for HIV testing in order to find out their status and get access to medical care if they are positive. She says, "The numbers are still astronomical, with newly reported cases particularly among seniors and youth." This year her department has tested over 2,000 people. Bob Baxter points out the disturbing increase particularly among young gay men of color who, as opposed to their injection counterparts, have not learned from their elders the ravages of HIV.
Corey DeStefano, Treatment/Research Director, explains there are more treatment options today, and getting people into treatment not only benefits them but as the medicine reduces their viral load it also reduces the likelihood of their transmitting HIV to others. As people now live longer and take more medicine, resistant strains are developing, so her clinic is conducting a clinical trial on a new investigational integrase inhibitor which might be more effective with multi-drug resistant patients. The clinic provides medical care to over 300 patients, but with an increasing number on Medicaid or no health insurance.
Executive Director Brian McGovern is concerned that in spite of new medicines that render HIV a chronic manageable illness there remains a significant need for increased and more effective prevention programs. Also, as people with HIV live longer, they need to view themselves as whole persons, looking past their HIV status and accessing a broader range of services. In the meantime, as Baxter points out, youth continue to feel that HIV is not a big deal and that if they turn positive they just take medicine, unaware that even researchers do not know the full effect of life-time treatment, with the likelihood of side effects, resistance and other illnesses brought on by a compromised immune system.
Today the New Jersey Stop AIDS Coalition is holding its annual World AIDS Day Event at Symphony Hall, Newark, from 1:00PM to 5:00PM. Speakers will include Mayor Wayne Smith, Irvington, and Mayor Mary Sharon Robinson Briggs, Plainfield. In the midst of so much economic difficulty the focus today is on community needs and will include raffles for rental and PSE&G vouchers. |
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