Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 13, 1993 TAG: 9302130086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Carolyn Click
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IT'S NO SECRET ANYMORE: TEENS ARE GETTING AIDS
Remember the childhood party game, Secrets?Partygoers sat in a circle and someone, usually the host, made up an elaborate plot to share with the group. The tale was whispered to the first little boy or girl, who related the details to the next person, who passed it on to the next person, and so on down the line.
Usually, the tale was designed for laughs and as the story rolled down the line of giddy youngsters, facts almost always became exaggerated and skewed.
When the story came full-circle, the original version was compared to the final tale - with some hilarious results. Like the adult version of gossip, the kiddie game taught a valuable lesson: Don't believe everything you hear.
I thought about "Secrets" the other day, when I began to unravel the facts behind the story of a Roanoke teen-ager infected with the AIDS virus.
I had heard or read several different versions of this modern-day morality play: The kid had tested positive for HIV in September but couldn't remember the names of the girls with whom he had engaged in sex; his sexual conquests took place at Roanoke-area malls where teens allegedly jump in and out of the back seats of cars with abandon; he knew he had HIV but continued to engage in unsafe sexual practices.
It all sounded scary and, frankly, a little hard to believe.
For the straight skinny, I went to the source of the story, Lee Radecke. Radecke is a senior public health nurse and AIDS program coordinator for Roanoke and the Alleghany Health District. She also is a straight talker when it comes to educating people, particularly teen-agers, about the lethality of AIDS.
As it turned out, Radecke uses the illustration of the 17-year-old frequently in talks with kids and adults about AIDS. But the incident happened not in September, but more than two years ago.
The boy went to the public health clinic fearing he had contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Once there, he also agreed to submit to an AIDS test and found he was positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.
From then on, Radecke said, the teen-ager cooperated fully with health officials in tracking down his myriad sexual partners to alert them to the possibility they may have contracted the virus.
As it turned out, he couldn't remember everyone he had met at malls and unsupervised parties for brief sexual trysts. He did come up with the names of eight girls, who lived all over the city. After they were contacted by the Health Department, as required by state law, four agreed to be tested for HIV.
The tests on all four turned out, thankfully, to be negative, Radecke said. The 17-year-old, now 19, carries the virus but has not developed AIDS.No one knows the fate of the other four girls, whether they went to private physicians for tests or simply tried to forget.
Radecke isn't surprised that some of the facts of her story get skewed a bit, especially when told and retold by teen-agers who tend to think of themselves as immortal.
"Actually, I'm trying to shock them," Radecke said. "I think they need to know that the behaviors they may choose to participate in could expose them to someone with HIV. It's not a `we' vs. `them'; it's everybody's problem."
Radecke doesn't shy away from using real-life stories to pound home her message. Sometimes, she brings in HIV-positive patients to detail the consequences of risky sexual and drug behavior.
"I can stand up there and talk about HIV forever, but it's not until people actually meet someone with HIV that they begin to understand. . . . It's a disease that all of us need to worry about."
If the stories she tells sometimes get altered in the retelling, Radecke doesn't mind too much as long as the lesson she teaches about behavior and consequences gets learned.
"When I talk to teen-agers, I talk to them about choices," she said. "I think the best choice is abstinence, but I realize the choice is theirs.
"My point is: If they choose to be sexually active, they need to be aware that it could happen to them."
And that, unfortunately, has turned out to be no secret. A5 A3 OFF-BEAT Off-beat