Byline: Kim Ode; Staff Writer
CORRECTION PUBLISHED 11/05/03: This column incorrectly reported that among Minnesotans developing new cases of HIV in 2002, half were women. The correct number is 29 percent.
Ford Campbell can remember when he knew both of the men in the Twin Cities who had AIDS, in 1983. He remembers when, a few years later, he pulled open a file drawer at the Minnesota AIDS Project and saw it filled, front to back, with the files of those who had died. Today, he says he doesn't know anyone with full-blown AIDS.
"But I'm not in the front lines anymore," he said. Twenty years ago, Campbell was part of a small group that founded the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP). As with many from those early days, they barely grasped what they were up against and grief and exhaustion eventually took their toll. For the past 12 years, Campbell has taught at an elementary school.
As he's changed, so has the impact of the disease. Last year in Minnesota, women accounted for more than half of the new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. New immigrants from Africa accounted for one in five new cases of infection, reversing what had been a modest, but steady decline in new cases. Compared with the mid '80s, the headlines are more sporadic, the sufferers less visible. No one talks anymore about quarantine camps for infected people; now they just cut funding.
Still, Campbell said, MAP's message has remained one of consistent resiliency and calm: "It's just an illness and people with it are just people with an illness."
Tracy is a person with an illness. Tracy is today's face of HIV, but it's a face you won't see in any photos here. It's enough, she said, that she has to look in the mirror each morning "and all you see is HIV." In the same breath, she declares that she looks as healthy as anyone else. But there remains enough stigma, enough suspicion, that she guards her anonymity.
Tracy is 37, the mother of three teenagers. Her illness was diagnosed late last year after a former boyfriend called to tell her his infant daughter had HIV and that she should get tested. "I didn't know nothing about HIV or AIDS," she said. "I thought it was airborne. I thought you could get it after drinking after someone.
"I come from the street and I beat the street life. I'm an alcoholic addict also and I beat my addiction, but I couldn't beat love. That is a hard one to swallow. I could understand if I got it from the street or high or drunk, but not from somebody that I absolutely trusted."
MAP has proven her lifeline. "I can lean on them for every little bit of things," Tracy said. "Acceptance was a big part, because you feel like you have leprosy. MAP saves lives, because they've already saved mine a couple of times."
Something was happening
"Clearly, something was going on, but we weren't sure what," Campbell said of the early 1980s. "They were calling it AIDS, a syndrome."
Twin Cities gays needed to organize, as they were doing on the coasts. Campbell joined a small group of friends that included Bruce Brockway, the first Minnesotan with AIDS, Bill Runyon, Dr. John Whyte, Tom Wilson-Weinberg, Morris Floyd and Eric Stults. Brockway liked the word "project." "He wanted it to be something that accomplished some task," Campbell said.
Few people outside the gay community paid much attention. MAP ran on donations and volunteers, medical theory and gut instinct. "Anybody was qualified to do AIDS work because no one was qualified to do AIDS work," Campbell said, smiling.
Then in 1985, Rock Hudson died.
"There was this, `Oh, my gosh, these are real people.' " Suddenly, the nation's blood supply was under scrutiny. Fear bred talk of quarantines. But fear also galvanized the movement. Trained people joined MAP. Researchers sharpened their focus. There were new medicines. There was more of everything - including infections.
Over time, new treatments have slowed the progression from HIV to AIDS, and from AIDS to death. Where we are now, Campbell realized with some surprise, is just about where he'd been led to expect we'd be. "The medical world was telling us they weren't going to have a cure for a long time, that we're not good with viruses," he said. "But I think eventually we'll find a way to get rid of HIV."
Living, after all
Twenty years ago, MAP helped people with HIV make their wills. Now, it helps them fight employment discrimination. Those who once felt they'd gotten a death sentence and emptied their bank accounts now seek help with their retirement planning. As of last year, almost 4,600 people are known to be living with HIV in Minnesota, and experts believe that another 2,500 don't realize they're infected.
So much happens over 20 years. We move on, because of fear or because we're pushed by the next round of awfuls. Maybe it's terrorism, maybe it's SARS - specters that enable the majority to think about "us" instead of "them." But it's never that simple. Every day - every 29 hours, if you're a stickler - a new case of HIV is reported in Minnesota. Last year, 34 percent were in the suburbs.
Kim Ode's columns run Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Write to her at kimode@startribune.com, or 425 Portland Av. S., Minneapolis MN 55488. For past columns, go to http://www.startribune.com/ode.
MUSICAL THEATER BENEFIT
Elegies
What: Fifty local performers are donating time and talent in an evening of musical theater with "Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens." Proceeds will benefit the Minnesota AIDS Project and the Minneapolis Musical Theatre.
"Elegies" is rarely performed. Nationally known playwright Bill Russell and composer Janet Hood were inspired by the Names Project AIDS Quilt. Through the stories of mothers, sons, daughters and partners, their message is how to let loved ones go, while commemorating how they have changed us.
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Where: Historic Pantages Theatre, downtown Minneapolis.
Tickets: $35 for general admission, available at http://www.aboutmmt.org, through the State/Orpheum/Pantages Theater box offices, or through Ticketmaster (612-673-0404 or http://www.ticketmaster.com). VIP tickets are also available.