By SHERRI ACKERMAN sackerman@tampatrib.com
Published: Apr 26, 2004
NEW PORT RICHEY — A room full of Ridgewood High School sophomores are asked if they know someone with AIDS. Seven hands shoot into the air.
One student reveals that her aunt died of the disease three weeks earlier. She had contracted it from a boyfriend who hid his secret life with a man.
Another says later, "I know a girl. ! Her mom has HIV. She doesn't have boys over because of what happened to her mom."
It's a frank discussion for teens, and a necessary one, health officials say.
It may be a matter of life and death, says Thomas Lister, a Tampa man who tested positive for HIV in 2002.
Learning he had the disease gave Lister a new mission in life: to share his story with a generation that could change the direction of AIDS.
He ticks off sobering statistics about a disease that health officials say is on the rise again nationwide.
AIDS is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States among people 15 to 24 years old. Of the 40,000 new HIV infections each year, 25 percent are 21 or younger. Girls 13 to 19 represent nearly 60 percent of new infections.
The latter figure raises eyebrows among a row of pony-tailed girls with folded hands resting on blue-jeaned laps.
This isn't another discussion on abstinence — the only sure-fire way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.
It's an honest, human look at being responsible, says Lister, 39. And it could be coming to a school near you.
School officials from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties are considering adding Lister to their AIDS education programs.
"Our students always ask us to bring in someone with HIV," says Fran DeVito, a Hillsborough County schools risk reduction specialist who came to Ridgewood with two co-workers. "It takes a lot of courage to get up and talk about this."
Lister's proposal will be reviewed by a special board that oversees such programs, DeVito says.
Pasco County is the first to welcome Lister as part of its decade-old AIDS education program. Ridgewood school nurse Barb Toth invited Lister to speak along with Phyllis Kirwin, 66, who says she contracted HIV from her former husband.
Lister is affable and conversational while talking about HIV and AIDS to six classes in New Port Richey.
From 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., the intensity never wavers. He asks students about trust, about relationships, about sex. They aren't shy.
"Can you get it from oral sex?" a girl asks.
"Yes," Lister and other students respond in unison.
"Who gets HIV?" Lister asks.
"Gay people," one boy answers quickly.
"Anyone," another says.
"Me," Lister tells them.
Although he doesn't tell students that he's gay or offer much detail, he blames an ex-boyfriend for lying about whether he was infected. Lister eventually won a $5 million civil suit against Ron Hill, a former San Francisco health commissioner and AIDS activist. Lister has yet to collect the money, he says.
He also brought criminal charges against Hill, who was indicted last year for infecting Lister and another man.
A judge ruled in December that there wasn't enough evidence to prove Hill intended to infect Lister, a point that's difficult to prove under California's law on criminal transmission of HIV.
Florida has a similar law, Lister says, and that surprises many in the audience. You can go to prison for up to five years for knowingly infecting another person with HIV.
But no law can keep you from being infected, Lister says.
"You're the ones who have to protect yourself," he tells the teens. "If you're having unprotected sex, you are at risk for getting HIV. You have to have protected sex. Always. Always. Always."
Get tested, he urges them. Have the courage to ask potential partners whether they have been tested, and if so, where? When? It's not something you forget, he says.
"You remember the two weeks of waiting" for results, Lister says. "There's so much anxiety."
The best bet: Go together for the test and the results.
He quotes findings from a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Tulane University printed in the September 2003 issue of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
Of the 269 HIV-positive people interviewed, more than 75 percent did not disclose their status to a casual sex partner. Researchers also found those between 18 and 22 were least likely to disclose their HIV status.
"People will lie to you," says Lister, who moved from San Francisco in June to be closer to friends in Tampa.
He looks healthy, but starts each day swallowing four pills. Without insurance, the medications would cost the one-time aspiring actor and former Charles Schwab product manager about $1,500 to $2,000 a month.
At the end of one presentation, a girl comes to Lister and proudly displays her arm. She sports a bandage — evidence of a blood test she took with her boyfriend and a friend of theirs who is gay.
The girl, Lashonda Barber, says the message is one more students should hear.
"They should have this in the middle schools," says Barber, 16.
Another teen takes a good look around the room and realizes there are classmates who likely are infected with the disease.
"Everybody's blind," says Neil Biswas, 15. People want to ignore that they're at risk, but "hormones are raging."
For information, call Lister at (813) 884-5898.
Researcher Michael Messano contributed to this report. Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144.
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