LETTER: AIDS Neglect

We would like to thank the many sponsors and organizers of HIV/AIDS Awareness Week 1992 for their contributions to a revitalized and comprehensive program. Thanks also to the The Daily Pennsylvanian for its editorial support and coverage of some of the over 25 activites during HIV/AIDS Week 1992. However, the DP's laudatory editorial neglected to include the Graduate Student Associations Council as a central and active organizing force, along with Facilitating Learning About Sexual Health and the Student Health Service. The GSAC committee on HIV/AIDS Awareness, growing out of graduate activism in the face of Penn's intransigence on this issue, was and is essential to the presence and content of HIV/AIDS awareness programs. Without graduate activism, there would still be no HIV/AIDS Awareness Week. The participants who attended HIV/AIDS Awareness Week programs received both an education and a greater awareness of the epidemic. We are learning about testing and treatments, denial and responsibility, condoms and condemnation. HIV/AIDS awareness activities will continue throughout the year. For those who did not attend awareness programs, we can only repeat the words of the DP's call for Valentine's Day personals: "Imagine Their Disappointment." Imagine the feelings of disappointment and anger which you or your partner would feel if one of you failed in your responsibility to care for and protect one another. Imagine the disappointment of the terminally ill when you neglect to learn about their needs and problems. Imagine our disappointment when the call for personal ads is made and heard across campus, while the call for HIV/AIDS awareness, responsibility and support of persons with AIDS is muffled by institutional weakness, denial and apathy. HIV/AIDS awareness is a matter of life and death. How many people must die before you will care to listen, to understand and to act? MICHAEL POLGAR MICHELE GRIMM ALAN ORSI ANNE CUBILIE Members GSAC HIV/AIDS Awareness Committee

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