By Jessica Lemp
Despite medical advances over the years, HIV and AIDS still have a strong presence in American society that may never see a cure, according to one man living with HIV.
As part of a daylong event to raise awareness on sexual issues, the University welcomed speaker Nate Longtin to talk with students about the impact of HIV/AIDS on the gay community.
Longtin has been living with HIV since 2002. He currently works with an HIV service provider in Boston and for Hope’s Voice, a national HIV/AIDS campaign, where he travels to high schools, colleges and other institutions to discuss his own experiences with HIV.
The lecture was an interactive program, in which Longtin openly and honestly addressed a small, intimate group, answering their questions and discussing their concerns.
Longtin, who works with support groups for gay men in their twenties who are HIV-positive, discussed the alarmingly growing trend of infection. According to him, the largest number of people who contract HIV is in the gay community, and recently emerging figures shown the highest rate of contraction is among homosexual black men.
“You would hope that the epidemic is kind of getting better,” Longtin said. “But I just don’t see it that way. It’s kind of disheartening for me.”
Many HIV-positive people do not discuss the fact that they have contracted the virus because of the stigma surrounding AIDS. This poses a problem because they are not telling their partners and further spreading the disease.
When asked if he believed there would be a cure or vaccine for HIV or AIDS within his lifetime, Longtin was not optimistic.
“The problem is that the virus mutates, and it changes so freely that any kind of vaccine is attacking one strain,” he replied. “There are all different viruses. Ultimately, the best cure is prevention and conversation.”
Longtin’s message to the student body was that no matter how safe a person thinks he or she is, infection is still a probability and anyone not practicing abstinence or safe sex is vulnerable to infection.
“They don’t see it so therefore it’s not there,” Longtin said. “That’s not the case. You might think that you’re in some little protected enclave, but it’s there.”
In addition to warning students about the dangers of unprotected sex, Longtin discussed his life with HIV, including the various medications he has to take and their various undesirable side effects, as well as the ways of contracting the disease, the differences between HIV and AIDS and the methods of testing.
“I thought it was very informative,” Lia Mulligan, a senior social science major, said. “I think it’s really important to have programs like this, not only on college campuses, but everywhere. Like he said, conversation is a big part of it.”
In the end, Longtin was successful at clearing up common misconceptions about HIV and AIDS and opening students’ eyes to the world of one who is infected.