The Herald Online

Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: Campus

Media Credit: Photo illustration by Anna-Marie Lawrence The World AIDS Day Conference will be held on Dec. 1 in the the Student Union Auditorium. The conference will include a continental breakfast, confidential HIV test and will end with a candlelight vigil outside the Student Union.

There was a time when contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was widely considered a death sentence.

But, with the development of effective antiretroviral drugs used to offset the effects of the disease and extend the lives of those who are infected, much of the fear surrounding HIV/AIDS has diminished, and there are many people who think that because of the area they live in or the groups they belong to, they are not at risk.

ASU's College of Nursing and Health Professions Department of Social Work will host a World AIDS Day Conference on Dec. 1 that will challenge these attitudes toward the deadly virus. Conference events will be held in the Student Union Auditorium.

The conference, titled "HIV Complacency: A Deadly Risk Factor," is intended to raise awareness of the impact of AIDS in Northeast Arkansas.

The conference will feature AIDS researcher Dr. Dexter Voisin from the University of Chicago as its keynote speaker. His presentation is titled, "I am educated, young and live in the South; so, why should I be concerned about HIV?"

The conference will also include a free continental breakfast, confidential HIV testing and will end with a candlelight vigil outside the Student Union at 6 p.m.

Registration ends at 11:59 this evening and those interested may register by e-mailing lbrewer@astate.edu.

Guitele Rahill, an assistant professor of social work who organized the conference, said the risk of getting HIV in this area is greatly understated.

"A lot of the research indicates HIV has been spreading to the South, to rural areas," she said. "It is also spreading rapidly among youth ages 18-25."

She also said that complacency about the disease could lead to greater risk.

"People may not be as concerned as they used to be about catching it because now it's more treatable," she said, "There are approximately 40 percent more HIV infections than we previously believed."

Rahill believes that social stigmas associated with HIV contribute to attitudes of complacency toward HIV in the rural South.

She said commonly held beliefs about HIV, such as the belief that only homosexuals and poor minorities are at risk, lead to dangerously relaxed attitudes among people outside those groups.

She added that associating AIDS with "sinful behavior" makes the disease a taboo subject of conversation.

"If people are not talking about it in the context that it can hurt everybody, [HIV prevention] knowledge is not passed on to the new generation," she said.

Rahill said she doesn't see working to fight HIV as any different than fighting cancer or obesity, but that social attitudes make raising awareness of HIV more difficult.

"The problem with HIV is that there are some sexual behaviors attached to it, it becomes a taboo subject," she said. "But there are behaviors associated with other illnesses too."

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