Youth panel debates AIDS

More young gay men have become oblivious to the ravages of AIDS, adopting risky sex behaviors that threaten to usher in a new wave of infections.

It’s a worrisome scenario that has health officials trying to solve the age-old mystery of how to change the behaviors of teens.

“They don’t see the face of AIDS like they used to,” said David Lee, vice chairman of the Governor’s Council on HIV/AIDS.

Lee, who has been infected for 13 years, said the council is soliciting advice from young people about how to confront the dangers of AIDS at a time when drugs have made life tolerable for some victims. Successful treatments have also dulled the nation’s awareness and response to the scourge that killed thousands in the 1980s and 1990s. It caused 14,627 deaths in the United States in 2006.

“Lots of teens don’t think they can get it,” said Katie, a 19-year-old woman who was born HIV positive and participated in a youth panel for the council Tuesday morning.

One young woman named Courtney laughed efforts of educators at her Spokane middle school.

She said she watched a poorly made movie where the actors had “ ’80s hair.” She told the audience that few classmates paid attention.

“I fell asleep,” she said.

Jason Carr, an epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health, said the rates of HIV infections among young people are rising. He posed the vexing question of whether unprotected sex among young men was to blame, or if better testing brings more cases to light.

Kyle Richardson, a 21-year-old Eastern Washington University student, believes it’s a combination.

There’s renewed urgency among health officials to understand new data released by the Centers for Disease Control this summer that showed previous estimates of new HIV cases have been underreported for years.

Rather than about 40,000 new cases each year in the United States, the real number is closer to 56,300, according to the CDC.

In Washington state, that breaks down to about 600 new cases each year, adding to the approximately 9,800 state residents diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.

Spokane County had 37 new cases in 2007, bringing the number of residents living with the infection to about 380.

The fastest growing age group is people younger than 25. Surprisingly, Carr said, the rates are rising fastest in areas outside King County.

Some interpreted such data to mean that better testing is finally reaching rural outposts.

Tim Hillard, a member of the council charged with drafting a report for the governor about how to curb infection rates, asked the youth panel if there is a belief “you can run about with scissors because there’s a Band-Aid” for HIV?

One panelist said that because the medications make the symptoms of AIDS invisible, young people don’t see infections as a threat or even a negative affect for people infected.

Ryan Oelrich, prevention director and marketing coordinator for the Spokane AIDS Network, said the absence of harrowing new stories of American AIDS deaths may make young people, especially closeted gay men escaping sexually suppressive communities and schools, take risks.

“It’s difficult being gay in Spokane,” he said, adding that young people often choose sexual experience and acceptance from a partner who shuns condoms, rather than safe sex. “They don’t want to miss that opportunity,” he said.