04/19/2002

We Need a Vaccine... Now!
by Beth Bruno

My Uncle Bud had it all. One of eight children in a large Irish-Catholic family, he and his brothers and sisters grew up in a middle-class suburban neighborhood where everybody knew everybody. The streets were safe places to play; his dad worked to support the family while his mom stayed home to take care of their boisterous brood.

A scholar-athlete, Bud graduated from high school and was accepted at Notre Dame on a football scholarship. He planned to start his own business one day, just as his father had. With his friendly, outgoing personality and ease as a storyteller he would make a natural salesman. He was unflappable, fun, outrageous and made friends for life.

You know I'm setting you up for a fall; you can sense it, and you're right. While home for Spring break of his sophomore year, Bud awoke, got halfway to the bathroom and fell to the floor, a victim of polio that left him paralyzed from the neck down. For the rest of his life he was only able to move his fingers and neck. His mental faculties were untouched by the illness, as were his indomitable will, spirit and sense of humor.

What equips a person to make the best of adversity?

Bud's athlete friends on the field became his muscle power off the field. They carried him everywhere his wheelchair wouldn't, and never left his side. He finished college, graduated and started an independent real estate business with headset, phone and gift-of-gab. He even married and, through the wonders of modern medicine, fathered a child. Bud never missed a day at the office in 50 years and was always dressed to the nines!

Polio has been virtually eradicated from the face of the earth, down to a few hundred cases worldwide last year. Why? Because of Doctor Salk's discovery of a vaccine and its dissemination throughout the world.

Today mankind finds itself in the middle of the most devastating epidemic ever recorded. More people have died of AIDS than any other disease, including the Bubonic Plague. The death toll and rate of infection is sky-high in many parts of southern and eastern Africa and shooting up astronomically in Russia.

At the National Writers Workshops in Hartford last weekend (4/13-14/02), hundreds of people listened to Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, present staggering statistics about this epidemic that accounts for millions of cases world-wide while hundreds of thousands of other cases go unreported.

Medical research has found drugs to treat symptoms and to slow down the progression of HIV to full-blown AIDS. These drugs are not widely available and cost thousands of dollars per year. There is still no vaccine and still no cure. In some countries in Africa—Botswana to name one—so many adults, many of them parents, have died that there is no one to take care of their children. So nine- and ten-year-olds step in to raise their younger siblings, many of whom are also infected with HIV.

Laurie Garrett sounded an alarm that everyone in that Hilton ballroom in Hartford heard loud and clear. We need a vaccine against HIV. We need a cure for HIV. Research dollars must focus on these two goals with all the intensity and human intelligence men and women can muster.

My Uncle's disease never progressed. It did not kill him. He lived a full, meaningful life and was able to marry and raise children despite his horrendous bad luck. AIDS isn't like that. It eventually kills. And it is killing men, women and children throughout the world. We need government dollars, university dollars, corporate dollars and the dollars of private citizens to support promising research to find a cure and a vaccine... Now!

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Links:

Help end AIDS for all time: http://www.iavi.org/

Oxford AIDS Vaccine Initiative: http://www.oxavi.org/

Search for a Vaccine: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/aids/vaccine.html

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Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.