Empowering Women Infected With HIV : Health: Experts at Irvine conference say education about prevention and treatment is needed, along with a better support system.

The rapidly growing number of women who are testing positive for HIV lack the support systems, medical understanding and practical information that gay men with the same diagnosis are given, speakers said Saturday at the third annual Women and HIV Conference at UC Irvine.

“Women with HIV are in a very different situation than a gay man or even HIV drug users,” AIDS researcher Alexandra Levine said during her keynote address. “Gay men have a society that is organized to help them through this, but if you are a woman, you are alone.”

The all-day conference, organized by the South Coast Medical Center Foundation and the UCI Health Education Program, drew more than 400 people, including HIV-positive women, educators, activists, health-care workers, and students.

In Orange County, women account for 6% of the 3,400 reported cases of the virus, officials said.

Pat Norman, executive director for the California AIDS Intervention Training Center in San Francisco, challenged women at the conference to “empower themselves” by demanding that more education about prevention and treatment be available.

“How many women must die from this disease . . . before their loss will be considered important enough to make a concerted effort to stop the spread of the virus in this population?” Norman asked during her speech.

Among the topics discussed during a series of seminars was the impact the disease has on children who are either infected or have a parent who is.

One 34-year-old HIV-positive woman said during the session that she felt forced to retreat from her visible role as an AIDS activist because her 13-year-old son was being taunted by classmates.

“People aren’t nice,” said the woman, who said she was infected by her former husband two years ago. “Sometimes I regret coming out and speaking. You want to save people, but when you go out and speak, they dump on you. Your neighbors don’t want to touch the same vegetables you touched in the supermarket. It’s like a big tattoo across your head.”

But Jennifer Lee, a 23-year-old woman with HIV, said she is determined to continue to speak out and fight against such discrimination.

“People are ignorant,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where AIDS came from. It’s not about blame. It’s about working together to find a cure.”

Lee found out six months ago that she was infected with the virus. She was a new mother when she took the HIV test during a routine medical examination and was stunned by the results. Lee believes she was infected by her first sexual partner six years ago.

“I grew up in Irvine and graduated from high school with honors, but no one ever taught me about HIV,” Lee said tearfully. “I would never want anyone to be in the position that I’m in now.”

After a day of listening to AIDS specialists and meeting each other, conference-goers were given some comic relief by Suzanne Wilson, an HIV-positive comedian from Dallas.

“There’s so much sadness and sorrow,” Wilson said before her presentation. “Laughter helps us get through all of this together.”