Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARBARA L. MABERRY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As executive director of a rural AIDS service organization, I'm appalled that the organization Elizabeth Dole is president of - the American Red Cross - would consider amending material used by her foundation to educate AIDS instructors.
According to the Virginia Department of Health's statistics, we ``only have'' 180 persons diagnosed with AIDS and 270 persons with HIV. As Dole is well aware, those statistics only show cases tested through the health department, not those tested through private physicians, hospitals or other facilities assuring their anonymity. In all actuality, the numbers are much higher, with the nation's statistics not being accurate either.
How can she determine that current publications used by the American Red Cross to educate the American public are too explicit?
AIDS education cannot be too explicit! This epidemic - ``an outbreak or product of sudden rapid spread, growth, or development'' - is striking the entire population and killing off the world's population. Need I say more?
Since Dole's family belongs to the Republican Party, I consider this to be a personal issue, not a professional one and not a responsible one either. How can those in authority at the American Red Cross and the U.S. government curb the process of educating people? Didn't we learn anything from the Reagan administration?
The movie, ``And the Band Played On,'' should have enlightened the nation as to government-controlled censorship. As president of the American Red Cross, Dole is responsible to the public, not the Republican Party. Maybe if she worked ``one on one'' every day with those living with HIV/AIDS, she would understand their plight. Maybe if she could see these disease-consumed people dying from a malady that eats the body from the inside out, then she would understand the scope of the problem.
People whose skeletal appearance is frightening, even to their physicians, deserve respect of government foundations funded through taxes these people have paid throughout their working careers. The public should be enraged to know that the government and American Red Cross can curtail necessary information given to them due to their affiliation with a particular political administration. This isn't Dole's right, but her duty. Who pays her salary - taxpayers or Republicans? This isn't a Republican or Democratic decision. She needs to meet with those living with HIV/AIDS, which would educate her on a personal basis as to the overwhelming need for more education, not less.
As a nation, we've made enough concessions to the Newt Gingriches and Jesse Helms of the world. Please help keep those curtailments out of public informational bureaus. The need for educating a public, which still mistakenly considers this epidemic to be a homosexual disease, should dictate the amount of information given to the public. Evidently, Dole's decisions weren't based on the Department of Health's statistics. If she had properly investigated the situation, she, too, could fathom the need for more education.
Dole needs to reconsider her thoughts on this decision and not allow her husband's political endeavors to overrule her responsibilities as president of the American Red Cross.
Barbara L. Maberry is executive director of Sisters in the Name of Love of the Roanoke Valley.
by CNB