Battle fatigue
Pasadena area AIDS activists struggle to keep the fight going 30 years later
By Sara Cardine 12/01/2011
Thirty years ago, when the nation clamored to disseminate news, facts and awareness of a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic, the city of Pasadena stood at the forefront of activism.
It was here that physician and UCLA professor of medicine Michael Gottlieb became one of the first in the medical community to identify and classify AIDS in a 1981 report to the Centers for Disease Control. The city formed an AIDS Taskforce to study the needs of those living with HIV/AIDS, and All Saints Church had started the Pasadena AIDS Service Center to support individuals and families affected by it. By 1991, the Pasadena Public Health Department had opened Andrew Escajeda Comprehensive Care Services to provide outpatient care to HIV-infected individuals.
Even in its public observances, Pasadena was ahead of the curve. Traditionally, to mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, Pasadena residents joined the AIDS Service Center in a moving candlelight vigil, the Posada. The annual procession was held to remember loved ones and keep the focus on the fight.
But nowadays, with AIDS being managed as a chronic illness and more people living longer, thanks to the efficacy and availability of antiretroviral drug therapy, the nation’s fervor for awareness events and programs has markedly cooled. And, in this too, Pasadena has seemed to follow suit.
Today, World AIDS Day will be recognized at a 5:30 p.m. candle lighting ceremony on the steps of Pasadena’s City Hall. Later, a choral concert, “We Remember,” will take place at 7:30 p.m. at Pasadena’s Messiah Lutheran Church. The concert is sponsored by Good Shepherd Church and the Pasadena Pride Center, and donations raised will go to benefit the Pasadena AIDS Service Center. Another event, an art sale fundraiser at South Pasadena’s Fremont Gallery called “In the Flow,” will run Saturday through Dec. 12 will donate 50 percent of its proceeds to the Whittier Rio Hondo AIDS Project and the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team in Garden Grove (also known as the APAIT Health Center).
We remember … or do we?
This year’s events, two of which are inaugural, stand in the shadows of large-scale gatherings of years past, like the Posada. Organizers of the two arts events say they hope to pick up some of the slack left by a public that has moved on to fight other battles.
“I was looking last year for a communitywide observance of World AIDS Day, and I was kind of surprised and dismayed there was nothing really going on here,” said Rev. Rick Eisenlord of Good Shepherd Church and the Pasadena Pride Center, who organized the “We Remember” concert. “People either lost interest or the organizations felt they couldn’t do it any longer.”
Monterey Park artist Joy Alumit said she coordinated “In the Flow” to unify the art community in support of friends and loved ones touched by AIDS and for the benefit of local organizations who work with patients and at-risk populations. Alumit says even larger AIDS organizations are merging and shifting their missions to broader issues of public health to stay relevant.
“Smaller organizations are going to have to find innovative ways to thrive in a decade where there are budget cuts and people are merging just to survive,” Alumit said.
To be of service
This year marks a milestone in AIDS history — it was 30 years ago this June 5 that HIV/AIDS was officially classified as a rare lung infection by the CDC.
The Rev. George Regas, rector emeritus at Pasadena’s All Saints Church, recalled a time when large gatherings turned out for the church’s annual AIDS mass. “We put it together to bring in people’s consciousness the real tragedy we were experiencing with AIDS in larger Pasadena,” Regas said. “People became aware of what was happening all around.”
In 1990, Pasadena ranked fifth in California for HIV incidence per 100,000 people, with 146 people infected and 88 fatalities, according to an Oct, 11, 1990 Los Angeles Times article. Today, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health estimates there are 62,800 people in the county living with HIV/AIDS — 13,500 of whom don’t know they’re infected. In San Gabriel Valley, there are 2,981 people who’ve contracted the disease.
In 1987, under the aegis of All Saints Church, Regas helped start the AIDS Service Center as a telephone helpline where people could leave questions and concerns on an answering machine. A flood of calls came in, he recalls, and within one year, the church had raised enough money to open a brick and mortar center.
Today, the center, located at 909 S. Fair Oaks Ave. in Pasadena, supports more than 1,000 clients living with the disease and offers services to another 4,000 residents in the form of HIV/AIDS 101 education programs and testing, according to Director of Marketing and Development Anthony Guthmiller. Yet, despite its tireless daily efforts on behalf of clients, the Service Center eschewed the World AIDS Day Posada years ago.
“About six years ago, we converted that to a digital campaign that we need to activate again,” Guthmiller said. “We haven’t really done anything since then. In terms of public awareness, there’s a lot of apathy about that.”
Limited means
Local activists are battling not just a diminishing public interest in the cause, but also a continued decrease in funding and donations at the local, state and federal levels.
UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, released a report in November that detailed a worldwide slowdown in philanthropic funding for HIV/AIDS-related treatment and programs. American philanthropists’ contributions alone decreased $33 million between 2009 and 2010, contributing to a 7 percent decline in global funding.
“Even if the 2010 decrease in philanthropic funding for HIV is just a blip, every dollar lost enables new HIV infections, costs lives, can contribute to human rights violations and stalls progress in the global AIDS response,” John Barnes, executive director of the nonprofit group Funders Concerned about AIDS (FCAA), stated in a UNAIDS press release on the report. “To seize the opportunities now clearly in front of us to end this epidemic, it is critical that we continue to mobilize increased and strategic funding for AIDS.”
APAIT Director Jury Candelario said it’s incumbent upon organizations to come up with a new message that will speak to younger generations.
“I don’t think it’s the fault of the community for suffering HIV fatigue. I think we need to make it more pertinent, more relevant. The (In the Flow) exhibit is a perfect example of that,” Candelario added. “Our hope is to discuss HIV in new ways and hopefully raise a few dollars to keep our programs going.”
Eisenlord agrees. “AIDS is kind of looked at as a manageable disease, like diabetes. What people don’t realize is infections are still occurring, and people are still dying —there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
“We Remember,” featuring AIDS Memorial Quilt panels on display takes place today at 7:30 p.m. at Messiah Lutheran Church, 570 E. Orange Blvd., Pasadena. To learn more, visit weremember.us.com
The “In the Flow” exhibition runs from Saturday through Dec. 12 at Fremont Gallery, 812 Fremont Ave., Ste. 100, South Pasadena. An artists’ reception will be held Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information, call (626) 403-9901 or visit fremontgallery.com.
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