Davis’ Death: Change AIDS Public Policy

The Sept. 11 Calendar report of the death of actor Brad Davis provides yet another frightening illustration of the need for a massive change in public policy regarding the way we deal with AIDS and its victims.

The report of the life and death of Davis makes clear, both in what was reported and what one might reasonably surmise, that Davis made some dangerous choices in the more than half-a-dozen years he knew he was infected by AIDS.

And, there is good reason to believe he was not alone in making that choice, that others, equally desperate to preserve their sense of emotional and professional security, have made the same choice.

Their decisions are the direct result of the present public attitude and the overall public policies regarding AIDS, policies that help create and feed a deadly and dangerous environment of deceit and subterfuge.

As reported, Brad Davis lived out a good portion of the last years of his life increasingly hounded by a gnawing fear that the secret he cultivated would be discovered and lead to the destruction of his professional career.

Reading between the lines, one can imagine there were many times that Davis’ emotions swung wildly from the deepest of depressions to the heights of manic indifference. In such swings, there often is little room for concern for those around us and those we encounter, the casual and random exchanges of personal and professional life.

Those with AIDS who choose to be secretive and deceptive as they struggle for survival risk not only losing both the best and latest medical care available but they also create jeopardy for the innocent.

We see it with health-care providers inflicted with the disease who choose secrecy and thereby fail to take proper and provably effective precautions that would protect their patients.

As a result, now and in the future, increasingly, we will witness many more “accidental” victims who will contract AIDS in that way.

AIDS carriers who enter the world of secrecy and subterfuge have, for the most part, passed the point of giving responsible consideration to those whose lives and health they threaten with their behavior.

Such cases should touch off an alarm among those charged with maintaining the health and safety of the wider public.

Such cases should motivate policy makers and opinion leaders to give greater and more meaningful attention to the danger of continuing unchanged the current public policy regarding AIDS and its victims.

In the present climate of public opinion, and with the on-going resistance to change among many moral and political leaders, the truth that faces those who are diagnosed with AIDS is, tragically, their greatest argument for secrecy.

No matter how many fund-raisers are held, and regardless of the tremendous outpouring of energy, compassion and financial assistance generated by a comparatively small part of this society, the truth facing most AIDS victims is stark and undeniable: Under present conditions, diagnosis almost always means immediate social ostracism, likely and speedy impoverishment, and a lonely and ignominious death.

In such a reality, it is understandable why those who suffer from AIDS treat the disease and their plight with fear and loathing.

This is how much of society treats them.

That is why an unknown number of AIDS sufferers choose to live and die in hiding rather than face an unsympathetic and mean-spirited world with the truth of their condition.

We need nothing less than a climate of frank and unrelenting openness, buttressed by massive economic aid mixed with humane care for those suffering the most extreme emotional and material need.

A sane and humane course demands at least a portion of the emotional commitment, creative energy and national treasure as we were willing to expend to protect the national interest in the Persian Gulf.

The national interest in the safety and well-being of all our citizens here at home is equally demanding and facing imminent danger.

Immediate, informed and deliberate moral and political action on AIDS policies is demanded by events. If we fail, more and more will choose to follow the path of Brad Davis.

It is, after all, at our peril that they keep their secret, deep, dark and deadly until the day they die.