The Crowd

B.W. Cook

There is not as much talk about AIDS these days.

The disease that seemed to primarily attack gays and intravenous drug

users is no longer front-page news. So-called mainstream society no

longer fears a scourge of AIDS ravaging the heartland.

In America we tend to prioritize diseases and their cures. We attach

numbers to the afflicted. What percentage of people in the country suffer

from heart disease? How many have cancer?

HIV and AIDS is quite far down the totem pole of percentages. This is a

good thing. It is also a bad thing.

It is a bad thing because money and media pays more attention to those

afflictions that have bigger numbers. Tell that to a mother who has a son

with HIV. Tell that to a woman whose child has been diagnosed with HIV

because some aspect of her life that she has unwittingly passed on. Tell

that to Magic Johnson. Money for research is everything to those

suffering with HIV and AIDS. Time, after all, is against them, until a

cure is found.

Recently in Costa Mesa, with the help of one very funny and very

passionate celebrity, Lily Tomlin, AIDS Services Foundation held a

benefit at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, raising $50,000.

Tomlin’s touring show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the

Universe” made a stop at Segerstrom Hall with pre- and post-performance

receptions attracting some 400 supporters of the foundation.

“We were moved by her performance,” commented event chairman Don

Stratton. Following the 2 1/2 show, which touches every hot-button in our

present social framework, including the issue of HIV/AIDS, Tomlin joined

foundation guests in the Center Room of the Performing Arts Center and

remained until almost 1 a.m. talking with locals, signing autographs,

shaking hands.

“She is a very special person,” added Stratton, joining fellow donors and

supporters including his co-chairman Mike McCormack along with AIDS

Services Foundation President Al Roberts, executive director Dan Gleason,

Mitch Goldstone, Carl Berman, Dan Ketelaars, Garett Gruber and Anita May

Rosenstein.

Information has helped slow the spread of AIDS in the last decade. Safe

sex and talk about safe sex is a national curiosity.

Condoms, once never discussed let alone touted, are now a product as

common as aspirin. Moral, religious and political issues aside,

information concerning safe sex, and safe drug use (now there’s an

oxymoron if ever there was one), has altered the spread of HIV

considerably. At least this is true in the United States.

Elsewhere in the world, especially in Africa, Asia and parts of Central

and Latin America, HIV goes unchecked, with millions infected and

spreading the deadly virus. AIDS activists all over the United States,

including right here in Newport-Mesa, ask the question, “Do we care about

these invisible faces infected with the virus?”

The answer is a resounding yes. HIV/AIDS is a world problem, a human

crisis crossing all boundaries. Local people such as Bill Gillespie,

Roger Johnson, Rep. Chris Cox, Rick Silver, Kathryn Thompson, Dean Corey,

Bob Haskell and many more serve on the foundation advisory board to help

keep the money coming in for research and services, and to help keep the

media on the job of informing the public.

HIV/AIDS funding is not alone on that totem pole of scientific priority.

Alzheimer’s, Cystic Fibrosis, Parkinson’s, to name only a few, share in

the frustration that funding is limited by virtue of the numbers of

American’s afflicted. The truth is, our society must not prioritize

medical research. Unfortunately, the free market economy dictates what

drug companies will invest in possible cures.

In similar fashion, the government, based on legislated congressional

funding, will decide how much America will invest, via the National

Institutes of Health and other medical research centers, in various

research projects to cure disease.

Frankly, it is important that the public sector rallies for AIDS and

Parkinson’s and the rest. Without groups such as the AIDS Services

Foundation, and entertainers like Tomlin to draw the crowds attention to

the severity of the problem, things would be considerably worse.

But it’s not enough. We have the ability to cure HIV and eradicate it

from the planet. We have the ability to end the suffering from juvenile

diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Cystic Fibrosis. Scientists claim the cure for

Parkinson’s is close, but not yet in hand. Why? Because it’s not a

financial or scientific priority.

I ask, why not? What better course of action do we human beings have to

follow in our lifetime? And, what is the mark of a truly advanced,

civilized and democratic society if it is not caring for, saving the

lives of, and healing the illnesses of the people? There is nothing more

important. And while a free market economy many spin the wheels of

business and generate prosperity, it is apparently not sufficient to heal

the sick.

Socialized medicine is not the answer. Bureaucracy has never cured

anything. The answer lies in leadership on every level of our society to

foster the benevolent belief that life matters.

One life, two lives, a million lives matter. We have the brains. We have

the vision. And we have the money. So let’s spend it and find a cure for

AIDS and all the rest of the diseases.

Think about that this holiday season as you write checks for every

possible material object. Consider writing to your representative and

asking for Congress to spend more on health care. You might also find it

in yourself to help on a personal level, whether a donation to AIDS

Services touches your heart, or any other medical need.

It truly is the most important thing we can do in life for others, for

ourselves.

* B.W. COOK’S column appears every Thursday and Saturday.