Latinos Confront AIDS Issue After Magic Makes Disclosure

I am saying it can happen to anyone, even me . . .

--Earvin (Magic) Johnson AIDS educators in the Latino community are hoping that their message will have a greater impact now that basketball star Earvin (Magic) Johnson has disclosed that he is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

The stunning announcement by the Los Angeles Lakers star produced a surge of interest in AIDS among Latinos, as it did among other people around the nation. Latino telephone hot lines and centers that test for the AIDS virus were deluged.

Educators expect the surge to level off, but they hope that Johnson’s announcement will have long-lasting effects by increasing awareness about AIDS and dispelling the myth that it is a disease affecting only gay men.

Graciela Morales, a Los Angeles counselor at the nonprofit T.H.E. women’s health clinic, said: “Magic Johnson represents all ethnic groups, not just blacks. . . . When Rock Hudson died, most Latinos would say, ‘Well, he’s white and he’s gay.’ But with Magic the reaction is, ‘He’s one of us, and he’s straight. If it can happen to him, it can happen to us.’ ”

Ana Rosa Rodriguez, of the American Red Cross in Los Angeles, cautioned that AIDS educators still face immense obstacles in combatting the increasing incidence of Latino AIDS cases, including a reluctance by many Latinos to talk openly about sex.

Newly reported cases of AIDS are increasing faster among Latinos in Los Angeles County than in any other ethnic group, from 318 cases in 1987 to 556 in 1990. Latinos represent 25% of the new AIDS cases reported in the county in 1991, compared with 16% of the 1987 cases.

In all, 13,640 cases of the disease have been reported in Los Angeles County since 1981 and it has accounted for more than 9,500 deaths. In Orange County, AIDS cases now exceed 2,000 and AIDS deaths total 1,300.

David Trujillo, AIDS program administrative coordinator for Avance Human Services in East Los Angeles, said calls to the agency’s AIDS hot line increased dramatically--from 25 daily to as many as 100--in the days immediately after Johnson’s Nov. 7 announcement.

Most of those who called the hot line before Magic’s announcement were gay or bisexual, but “probably 80% to 90%” of the callers now are heterosexual, Trujillo said.

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said calls to its Spanish-language AIDS hot line jumped from a usual 100 to more than 800 during the day after Johnson’s televised news conference.

Claudio Battaglia said the Cara a Cara program, based at the Hollywood Sunset Community Clinic, has been swamped with requests for free tests to detect the AIDS virus. Many more teen-agers than usual were calling for AIDS information, Battaglia said.

Rodriguez, of the American Red Cross, said she usually receives about five requests a week for AIDS educational presentations, but got 10 requests in the first two days after Johnson’s announcement.

In addition to the increased awareness, a debate is under way locally over proposals to increase AIDS educational efforts in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district’s Board of Education is considering whether to accept a 12-step set of recommendations, including a proposal that condoms be made available in secondary schools.

Health officials say prevention through education is the only weapon against the disease because there is no cure. But they say education aimed at Latinos is inadequate and faces many obstacles specific to the Latino community.

“Educational efforts in general are not great, but they are worse in the Hispanic community,” said Dr. Aliza Lifshitz, a member of the Los Angeles County AIDS Commission and president of the California Hispanic American Medical Assn.

Lifshitz said most of the information and education about the disease was aimed initially at the Anglo gay male community, because that is where AIDS first hit hard in the United States.

“Some of that education was wonderful,” Lifshitz said, but the same messages that worked for the Anglo gay community do not work for Latinos. For example, she said, “we hear a lot about bodily fluids. A lot of Anglos don’t know exactly what that means, but when you translate it into Spanish, you lose it entirely.”

In addition, Lifshitz said, “when you’re talking about AIDS, you’re talking about sex, and sex is . . . not discussed among Hispanics.”

AIDS educator Lupe Carreon said the effects of AIDS misconceptions are compounded by the attitudes of parents who “refuse to believe that their 14-year-old is out there having sex.”

Such attitudes, she continued, indicate the need for much more than just basic information about AIDS. “There are many basic issues that need to be dealt with along with AIDS education: sex, sexual practices, beliefs about male and female roles, and how to talk to your children about sex,” Carreon said.

Rodriguez said adults often challenge her at the beginning of her presentation. The educators say Latino men especially do not like to be told to use condoms, which are recommended as a way to block the transmission of the AIDS virus during sexual intercourse.

Latino men will more readily use condoms outside the home but “using one at home is a possible admission of doing something outside the home,” said Linda Preciado, bilingual health educator for AIDS Project Los Angeles.

Lifshitz said these cultural objections to condoms and Catholic Church strictures against their use for birth control can be answered by delivering the message that Latino men should “look at the condom not as a birth control method, but as a means of preventing a disease that could kill you--and you would not be here for your family.”

Raul Magana, a vice president at the Buena Care Division of AltaMed Health Services Corp., said the message needs to be aimed not just at heterosexual men who patronize prostitutes but also at gay and bisexual Latinos.

Among Los Angeles County’s adult Latinos who have been confirmed as having AIDS, homosexual/bisexual male contact is by far the most common category of exposure reported, accounting for 73% of the more than 2,500 AIDS cases.

Magana said a shortcoming of many AIDS education programs is that they do not take into account what he calls “the differences between sexual identities and sexual behaviors” in Latino males. Magana said those who have sex with other men often “don’t consider themselves either bisexual or homosexual.”

But Mario Solis-Marich, director of the public policy division at AIDS Project Los Angeles, said Magana’s findings exaggerate the extent of denial among Latino gays. He agrees with Magana that educational efforts “need to concentrate on sexual behaviors and not necessarily on sexual identities.”

Magana notes that even when educational programs are available and aimed at the right audience, many of them are “designed at levels that are not appropriate for the target population.”

This is especially true if the target audience consists mainly of recent illegal immigrants. Educators say undocumented immigrants are harder to reach because they distrust government agencies or programs where they must provide information about where they live and work.

Undocumented immigrants often “come to us in the very beginning to find out where they can get a test (for AIDS), but then we lose contact with them,” because of such fears, said Battaglia. “They come back to us near the end, when there is little we can do for them.”

Despite the obstacles they face, AIDS educators have implemented a wide range of programs with private and government funding.

The program in which Carreon teaches is part of the Milagros AIDS project at the nonprofit El Centro Human Services Corp. in Los Angeles. Besides her classes for Latino women of child-bearing age, the Milagros project includes a program aimed at intravenous drug users.

At the Los Angeles chapter of the Red Cross, health activities director John Pacheco said AIDS education is now a priority. But he said the organization faces a problem because “money for education has really dried up.”

Lifshitz said the Latino community needs to mobilize against AIDS and create “an environment in which it is OK to talk about drugs, it is OK to talk about sex and AIDS with our parents, our teachers, our boyfriends, our girlfriends.”

Lifshitz said the effort needs to begin at home and continue throughout society. “We need to help the Hispanic woman, who is traditionally the educator, learn how she can communicate with her children so that they can get the message.”

About AIDSWHAT IS IT?

AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, a disease in which the body’s immune system breaks down, leaving it open to infections. It is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV.

An estimated 1 million million people in the United States have the AIDS virus, many of whom do not yet have any symptoms of the disease. More than 128,000 people have died of AIDS.

HOW VIRUS SPREADS * Sexual contact involving semen, vaginal fluid or blood.

* Sharing needles to shoot intravenous drugs.

* Contact with contaminated blood or blood products.

* Transmissions from infectd mothers to their infants during pregnancy, at birth or--in rare cases--through breast feeding.

TESTING

The AIDS virus is detected through blood tests available at numerous public and private testing centers.

Early detection of the AIDS virus is important, health officials say, because early treatment can retard the progress of both the AIDS virus and diseases such as pneumonia.

Testing is also important because people infected with the AIDS virus often don’t know it and can pass the virus on to others.

Some centers will perform the test anonymously, meaning individuals are not required to furnish their names, addresses or other identifying information. Others provide confidential tests in which individuals must furnish their names but the name and test results are not revealed without the individual’s permission.

The most common AIDS test usually costs between $35 and $45 at private testing centers but is free at the majority of public clinics.

FOR MORE INFORMATION National AIDS Hotline: 1 (800) 342-2437

Avance Human Services: 1 (800) 922-2437 or (213) 876 2437

For HIV test information, AltaMed Health Services: (213) 266-1122

Orange County AIDS/HIV Help Line: (714) 834-8129

For brochures, American Red Cross: (213) 739-5297

AIDS in L.A. The number of Latinos with AIDS in Los Angeles County has been growing more rapidly since 1987 than for other groups. 1987: 318

1988: 436

1989: 534

1990: 556

Source: Los Angeles County Department of Health Services