By Sonu Munshi
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Shaney McCoy, a psychology senior, talked Wednesday about the challenges she faces every day living with the HIV virus in front of a packed Alumni Lounge at the Memorial Union.
McCoy's talk was part of a series of events Wellness and Health Promotion had organized as part of AIDS Awareness Week.
"There's not nearly as much public support for HIV as for cancer or heart disease, because of the stigma attached to it," McCoy said. "I want to help change that perception."
McCoy, who graduates this May, got the virus through heterosexual contact with her husband and was diagnosed in 1997, even though she started showing symptoms two years earlier.
"Being educated, white and from a middle-class background, even the doctors didn't think I would be at risk for contracting HIV," McCoy said. "But that's such a cliched notion."
Psychology senior Hayden Hage said she appreciated McCoy's honesty.
"Shaney is in one of my classes and I would have never imagined someone sitting next to me would have HIV," she said.
Freddy Roman, assistant director at Wellness and Health Promotion, has helped organize the annual event for the past 11 years.
Roman said she hoped that students talking about having the disease would drive home the point that youth can get infected.
"In the past it was difficult to identify ASU students who would be willing to tell their story, especially on their own campus," she said.
Another guest speaker, AIDS/HIV activist Talatha Kiazolu-Reeves, presented statistics about the increasing risk young women face due to continued misconceptions about getting infected.
Citing UNAIDS and the Kaiser Family Foundation, she said 14,000 new infections are reported globally every day. At the end of 2005, 17 million women were infected.
Studies indicate young women in the United States are increasingly getting infected with HIV through heterosexual contact, Kiazolu-Reeves said.
Eight percent of women reported to have tested positive for HIV in 1985. But in 2005, 32 percent of women reported positive, she said.
"Society and women's sexual role and perceptions of themselves in sexual relationships play a big role in their risk-taking behavior," Kiazolu-Reeves said.
"It's easier to get HIV than give HIV," she told the audience, a majority of who were women.
Roman said disparities in healthcare and lack of prevention-measure messages account for increased risk among minority women.
Pre-med biology sophomore Sean O'Reilly said he attended the event to find out more about AIDS.
"I want to increase my knowledge about the disease," he said. "It's such a growing problem."
Roman said student response for AIDS Awareness Week has been encouraging.
"There were a lot of questions regarding being in abusive relationships or about the chances of your partner infecting you," she said.
Activities continue today with a brown bag seminar on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. in the MU's Pima Room.
Reach the reporter at sonu.munshi@asu.edu
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