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HEALTHWISE:

Gay Peoples Chronicle

GETTING SERIOUS AND THE AIDS ANTIBODY TEST

By Rob Daroff-

Even before the AIDS antibody test was invented, it was surrounded by criticism. The ELISA, as it is more technically known, claimed to determine whether a particular person had been exposed to the HTLV-III virus, presumed to causes AIDS.

When the test became widely available, gay, people were warned to avoid it because (1), its potential for misuse seemed all too evident, and (2), the test itself seemed to produce a disquieting number of false results.

Well over a year after the test first came out, at least some of those early warnings remain valid. New examples of misuse of the test continue to make news on almost a daily basis.

Robert Haverkamp, a lawyer and Assistant Attorney General in Columbus, calls the misuse an example of "knee jerk reactions" by public officials who feel they need to show that they are doing something to stop the spread of AIDS.

Haverkamp cites hysterical legistlative moves throughout the country that would, for example, require testing for prostitutes, prisoners, all hospital patients, those applying for marriage licenses, teachers, and even school children. Few of these proposals have actually been adopted, but in other areas there is little doubt that the test is being

used unethically.

The bottom line is that no one should take the test in a setting where names are recorded.

Alternative testing centers throughout Ohio have been offering the test absolutely anonymously since last April. The Cleveland center at the McCafferty Health Clinic, for example uses a numbering system and does not use names. After conducting over 700 tests, the case is clear that McCafferty is a safe, reliable place for gay and bisexual men to be tested.

The most frequent question at-risk individuals have is, "Even if confidentiality is ensured, isn't the test too unreliable to be truly valuable?"

According to the AIDS experts, the answer to that question is a resounding *No.'

Dr. Max Proffitt is Head of the Section of Clinical Virology at the Cleveland Clinic, and has performed thousands of ELISA tests in his laboratory. Proffitt told the Chronicle that claims that the blood test are unreliable are "simply not true." He said, "As far as clinical tests go one is very accurate.

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Proffitt explains that the major problem with the current test is that it may not give accurate results if the person tested was only recently exposed to the virus.

To control for this problem, the Centers for Disease Control suggests that gay and bisexual men should be tested on a periodic basis, and not just one time.

Proffitt and others have warned that the test will produce a significant number of falsely positive results when it is used in low-risk populations. That is the reason the test has never been recommended for people at low-risk (i.e., people who are heterosexual, nondrug users, non-hemophiliacs, and whose sexual partners are also not in a highrisk group),

Another Cleveland Cleveland Clinic AIDS expert, Dr. Leonard Calabrese, says that a positive test in a high-risk individual is synonymous with viral infection almost 100 per cent of the time." People at higher risk for AIDS include essentially all gay and bisexual men.

Dr. Proffitt admits that this test, like every other test in medicine, will always have some degree of error. At this point, however, the evidence seems clear that the ELISA test is highly accurate when used on high-risk populations.

Another frequent question asked is, "What good will it do you to know whether you are exposed to the virus? There is no cure, and the advice to practice safe sex is the same whether you are positive or negative on the

test."

Safe sex is crucial to maintaining health. If you are not presently infected and you continue to practice unsafe sex, you can almost be garaunteed that you won't remain uninfected.

If you are already infected, getting additional doses of the virus through unsafe sex will only increase the likelihood that the virus will become active. Of course, people who are infected can also transmit the virus to others through unsafe sex.

Recent statistics show that about one in every four gay men in Cleveland is currently infected with the virus.

Many gay men still believe that they are avoiding AIDS by merely cutting down on the number of their different sexual partners. Even more disturbing, in a survey conducted last spring at the Wildwood Lake picnic, over half of the respondents said they did not use condoms during rectal intercourse.

The sad fact is that some of us may need the shocking reality of a positive test before we will make truly significant behavior changes. In other cases it may take the loss of a friend to the dreadful disease. However we come to the conclusion, it is clear that now is the time to get serious.

Tomorrow may simply be too

late.

[Daroff is a cousellor at the HTLV-III Alternative Testing Site in Cleveland, as well as a member of the Chronicle staff).

LESBIANS AND GAY MEN WORKING TOGETHER

By SHANA R. BLESSING

There is a new unity emerging in Cleveland--the potential for socially and politically conscious lesbians and gay men to work, and even play, together.

During the Lesbian/Gay/Feminist Conference held at CWRU at the end of April, the Lesbian/Gay Community Service Center of Greater Cleveland sponsored a workshop entitled "Lesbians and Gay Men Working Together." Its stated purpose was to determine the common goals of our community and how we could benefit from mixed gender activities and services.

The grapevine implied that our efforts would go relatively unnoticed. Thus, we

expected about fifteen participants. Over twenty women and twenty men--more than 40 people--attended!

During the workshop, people were asked to write on slips of paper what

thought Cleveland's lesbian/ gay community needed which we have not yet provided for ourselves. Each statement was then read aloud and categorized by topic. Small interest groups coalesced for discussion around topics such as Ideology, Education, Social Services, and Social

Activities.

When the small groups merged to share findings, those interested in the ideological relations between lesbians and gay men provided the springboard for the remainder of the workshop.

Separate space was acknowledged as necessary, if not vital, for the empowerment of the two individual

groups.

Women-only space allows for feminist consciousnessraising and the creation of culture in which patriarchal oppression is challenged.

Men-only space, unfortunately, has not yet provided a forum for the development of a brotherhood which should challenge not only the oppressions gay men experience in the larger society, but also those oppressions which gays still promugate against their sisters.

The need for cohesion in the relationship between lesbians and gay men is evidenced in the lack of understanding between the two

groups divergent subcultures. The workshop group agreed there is a need for widespread education in the lesbian/gay community to all factions about all factions.

The myth of a unified community was set aside in hope of achieving an educated, diverse community.

Education throughout our community can be poliferated in two ways: via joint social services, and joint social activities, both of which must be supported by coalitions of already-existing community groups.

Services such as therapy offered by lesbian and gay counselors, and the Cleveland Lesbian/Gay Hotline, have been here awhile and we are lucky to have them.

The group expressed the