COLUMN: Stemming the AIDS epidemic

From Stephanie Cooperman's, "The Velvet Hammer," Fall '98 From Stephanie Cooperman's, "The Velvet Hammer," Fall '98In the world of college freshmen, sharing clothes, food and colds and sickness is a veritable staple of dorm life with a roommate. My high school friend, a sophomore at a large Midwestern university, was told last year that her roommate was HIV positive by a hallmate in whom her roommate had confided. Although I consider myself open-minded and extremely liberal, I asked my friend if she thought about changing rooms. She laughed at me and said that she considered herself lucky: She knew now not to borrow her roommate's razor, while l could never have the same confidence. The current trend of the retrovirus indicates that AIDS has forged an epidemic greater than the black death of the middle ages. But college campuses around the country have yet to acknowledge the role they can play in extinguishing the disease. At Penn, every incoming freshman must undergo a test for tuberculosis, an airborne communicable disease, as part of the final paperwork for admission. No test, however, is now in place for sexually transmitted diseases, let alone the HIV virus. For the safety of both individual students and the campus as a whole, there should be one. That is not to say that all other universities remain dead to the call of their students' health. Although tuberculosis tests appear to be the norm across the country, Rutgers University in New Jersey additionally requires all incoming freshmen to take a syphilis test, in part due to a recent outbreak on the New Brunswick campus. This move has lead to a decrease in syphilis cases at the university, a trend that Rutgers officials expect will continue. Penn should follow Rutgers' lead in instituting required testing for sexually transmitted diseases common among college students, particularly the HIV virus. The fundamental difference between syphilis and AIDS is the former's ability to be treated by antibiotics. As a prominent research university, Penn spends millions of dollars each year testing possible AIDS vaccines. Ironically, in the same year reports estimate that over 10 percent of the people that contract the disease do so on college campuses. Penn and other colleges and universities nationwide have the opportunity to help the stop the spread on their own campuses by requiring all incoming freshmen to be tested before the fall semester. Although some may say AIDS testing will unnecessarily mark students even before they step foot on a college campus, the testing is not meant to discriminate or prevent students from attending an institution to which they have already been accepted. A person infected with the HlV virus can enjoy a prolonged life if the disease is caught in its early stages. Additionally, one can reduce the risk in which they place others by refraining from sexual activity, certain types of drug use and even donating blood. An infected student, however, cannot change his lifestyle in any way if he does not know he is a carrier. Some universities may be reluctant to look into required AIDS testing because of the many restrictions surrounding it. But according to Philadelphia employment attorney Daniel O'Meara, such restrictions apply, for the most part, only to the workplace. The Americans with Disability Act restricts the tests that can be conducted on employees. And many states also prohibit employers from inquiring if their employees have AIDS. In places where questions are allowed, most employers abide by an unwritten "don't ask, don't tell" policy. While such a policy makes sense in the workplace, where discrimination may be a concern, the situation on college campuses is a different story. At universities, for instance, there is a higher chance that a student will wake up with a hangover Sunday, having slept with an unknown partner. In this environment of greater risk, greater preventative measures are necessary. And if the University clearly states its intentions to test incoming freshmen long before their matriculation has occurred, then Penn can avoid the "invasion of privacy" laws that constitute one of the major hindrances preventing institutions from requiring AIDS testing. In a perfect world, sexually active students would take it upon themselves to be tested for HIV and AIDS every year. In this same world, every sexual act committed on a college campus would involve a condom. But we don't live in that world. Every year, there are 12 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases. Some of these can be treated and put into submission, but the AIDS virus is not among them. It's time the university arena takes responsibility for its existence in a larger world, one that includes a deadly virus whose transmission need not occur on Penn's campus.