Sloane Berrent's Blog
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Don't Join Me at the AIDS WALK LA This Weekend or Donate To This Cause. No seriously, AIDS Research and Treatment Is Overrated.
- Posted on 10.13.08
Friends,
Why bother right? AIDS was an epidemic that swept through America like so 10 years ago and now it's this thing that we don't really hear that much about anymore. I mean it's not like 2 million people died in the US alone last year. Or the fact, according to the CDC that 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in this country, half of them women.
But wait. What if the AIDS epidemic was about more than AIDS? What if it was about equal access to medical treatment no matter how much money you have in your pocket or the color of your skin or based on where you live? What if finding a way to live with the disease in dignity was better than giving up and letting go and saying fuck it because no one cares about me.
I started the journey to educate myself about AIDS when I was in high school. I would take the public bus to the other side of town and volunteer for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. I was the first Youth Chair for the first ever Pittsburgh AIDS Walk. That was 1995. I learned about how people with HIV/AIDS prefer to tell others that they are "living with the disease" instead of dying from it. I saw prejudice first-hand from people who looked down on those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and I met people who were just beginning to deal with their diagnosis. I took food to houses of people living with AIDS who were really, well, on the verge of dying. By the time I had graduated high school, I had people I really knew and cared about who had passed away. It was an emotional journey that has remained a part of who I am to this day.
Since the search for a cure to AIDS began dozens of years ago, incredible medications have been discovered and wouldn't you know, some of them have helped treat other diseases. The drug lamivudine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor developed to treat HIV, has proven to be the most effective therapy for chronic hepatitis B infection, another drug currently under trial is being used to treat hepatitis C. Since AIDS attacks the immune system, doctors and pharmaceutical companies have had to get creative with the "drug cocktails" we hear about in the media. In looking around online at various AIDS organizations, journals of medicine and articles about AIDS research, I found that drugs originally looked at for preventing or curing AIDS are currently being used for patients with advanced breast cancer who undergo bone marrow transplants in a last-ditch effort to fight the disease. Other AIDS specific drugs are being used for patients with other types of cancer, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis. And they're WORKING.
In 1995, it was mostly about finding a cure. Everyone was so sure they were close. Now, 12 years later, it's still about finding a cure but it's about prevention, education, awareness, access to medical treatments and community.
On Sunday, I walk for dear friends of mine who I've lost from this disease but I'm also walking for everyone who has no one else to walk for them. I'm walking for the people who are hanging on with a very thin hope that somewhere out there there is a medical treatment that will let them live with a little less pain and let them feel like the vibrant person they once were.
With a dynamic group of Causecasters, peers and friends - Sunday we walk to celebrate how far the search for a cure has come - and how to really persevere and win the war, we have to keep walking and keep doing our part to find a cure once and for all.
If you're in LA and can join us on Sunday, come one come all. You can sign up at (http://tinyurl.com/3s92fc) or join us on Facebook for more updates by clicking this link (http://tinyurl.com/3ee8cz). Or let me know! I'll send over all the info you need to have a kick-ass day walking through West Hollywood with our amazing group.
Whether you can make it or not, I'd like to ask you to make a donation in celebration of my walking here: http://aidswalklosangeles2008.kintera.org/sloaneberrent
I'm not asking for too much. Just give what you can. Every single donation is appreciated because I know you put forth just that little bit of effort to do this.
I'll wait while you donate.
Really, I'll just hang here, click the link, come back to read the rest of my email after.
Did you do it? Oh thank you! Thank you! Wow, what a great friend.
Remember what we say at Causecast - find a cause and make it your own. Pick one, pick five - your passion is boundless and if every one of us just chose one cause - imagine what an amazing world this would be.
Thanking you for your donation from the very bottom of my cause-filled heart,
Sloane
Related causes: Health, Human Rights
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