>> today is actually to tell my testimony, my story on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle with hiv. >> it is a diagnosis that is charged with so much stigma. >> you start to talk about sex, i mean the church clams up, your family clams up.
>> it could've been me that infected him or it could have been him that infected me because neither one of us were virgins. >> hello and welcome to southern remedy. i'm dr. rick deshazo. >> and i'm melissa faith payne.
hiv is said to be an epidemic in mississippi. health department reports state that african american males are the group hardest hit by the virus and the highest number of new cases are reported in 13 to 29-year-olds. >> i'll talk with health
professionals addressing this issue and we'll hear from community leaders addressing the problem. >> first we'll meet a young man who says he contracted hiv through unprotected sex and learn how he is coping with his condition.
♪♪ >> my name is marcus mcpherson. i'm 29 years old. i'm currently a graduate student at jackson state university. i'm studying public policy and administration. i've been hiv-positive for two
years now. it was just a regular, normal, what i thought to be normal test. i went to the clinic and got tested, crossroads clinic in the medical mall. got tested because i hadn't been tested in a while and just
decided to stop in and get my checkup. and that's how i found out. i had been getting tested before i moved back to mississippi, but once i moved back to mississippi it kind of lapsed for probably about almost a year.
i was shocked. it took me a while to process it. i was smiling and everything with the nurse at first, and then it was like as soon as the nurse left out of the office, i just broke down in tears. i had to just sit in the little
exam room just for a while before i could even leave and go home. i gained my composure just enough to leave out of the doctor's office and get to my vehicle. i basically sat there in the parking lot for about 20
minutes before i could even put my key in the ignition and start it up, to drive off to even call anybody. the first person i thought to call was my best friend. i told him that i was hiv-positive, i just found out. he reassured me that everything
was going to be okay. he just wanted to make sure that i was doing okay and after talking with him for a little while, i was finally able to regain my composure and eventually drive home. my parents are married. they have been married for at
least 40 years now. i actually have two older brothers. one passed away a few years ago, so that made me and my oldest brother real close after his passing. he was actually the first person in my family that i
told. and then afterwards, i think it was probably after six months or so that i told my parents because the main thing on my mind, i did not want them to worry about me because i knew that they had already lost one child.
i didn't want them to think that they were going to lose another child. my brother was shocked at first, but he saw that i was managing my care. i was going to my doctors appointments. i was taking my medicine like i
should and everything so he got over his initial shock very quickly. my parents, on the other hand, they were kind of upset a little. my mom cried. my dad was like, "son, you're going to be okay.
we are here for you if you need us." basically they have played a supporting role. i've started a strict diet of vegetarian diet. basically just eating healthy, exercising, taking my medicine. the same thing that a lot of
doctors tell their patients. i make sure i follow it. and a lot of people look at me and say oh, it's because of your diagnosis that you lost weight. it's actually not that. i lost weight on purpose. diabetes runs in my family.
high blood pressure runs in my family. high cholesterol runs in my i had a brother who passed away from a heart issue. i'm just trying to make sure that i take on a healthy lifestyle. i want to live.
that's my main thing. i don't want to be the person that dies early. i guess it kind of cemented when i first found out i was positive. i met a lot of people through a support group here in jackson. and over the short period of
time, several of the guys that i met when i first started going to those support groups have passed away because they were not taking care of their health, and that is one of the things that has kind of shocked me and made me really focus on taking care of my health care
and making sure that i do what i need to do to stay around for 20, 30, 40 years and have a long, fulfilling life. >> according to mississippi public health official, dr. nick mosca, african americans in mississippi are profoundly affected by hiv.
dr. mosca talks with dr. rick about these statistics. >> we are here today to talk a little bit about what is going on with hiv in the state because there has been a lot of stuff in the press and otherwise that things have changed, that there is an
"epidemic" of hiv in african americans, and we have a lot of african american citizens in our state. and they are disproportionately affected by this. is that true? >> nicholas mosca, m.d., director of the office of
std/hiv, mississippi health department: when we look at our data for positivity, people that have tested positive for hiv, three out of four of those infections occur in the african-american community. so yes, the african-american community is disproportionately
affected. i would say profoundly by hiv in this state. is it a new occurrence? no. if you look at the last 10 years, the african-american community has been disproportionately affected by
hiv. >> rick deshazo, m.d.: so this is another health disparity that african-americans have to deal with, like with all the rest of them? >> yes. and one thing that underlies the health of african american
communities is the context. it is the communities that they live in. people that are living in counties with high poverty rates, high unemployment rates, are going to have a greater burden of disease and poor health outcomes.
people that have difficulty accessing healthcare systems, if they live in parts of the state without a hospital nearby a physician, they are going to have a greater burden of disease. and then finally there are things like high
criminalization, other things that affect communities disproportionately living in poverty. >> we've talked a little bit about this epidemic disproportionately affecting african americans, but it also seems to be picking out a
subpopulation of african-americans who are more affected than others, and surprisingly it is a young population. in recent years, there has been an increase in cases of hiv infection among teenagers. probably the greatest spurt of
infectivity has occurred between the ages of 13 and 24 years of age. >> this breaks my heart. and this is happening here in our state? >> why? >> there are, i'm sure, a variety of factors that have
influenced this. it's important for people to understand how hiv spreads. it does not spread casually. it does not spread by sneezing or sharing an eating utensil for kissing. it shares through intimate sexual contact, typically
vaginal or anal sex. much more rarely, oral. it's not completely without any risk, so i have to mention oral sex. it can also spread through needle sharing. and it can spread from an infected woman to her fetus.
>> i think it was in 2010 when president obama got hold of these statistics that we just talked about when all of this became more apparent. in mississippi, it was already going on, as you said. but at a national level, put some more money and some new
energy into trying to make sure people were screened who were in risk groups and that they got the treatment as quickly as possible. and there was a lot of prevention done. did any of that money or any of that energy get down to
mississippi? >> the energy did and a little bit of the money, too. i will explain. the national strategy means that we need to focus on the communities that are most impacted. so we are trying to work more
in the mississippi delta region because if you rank communities that have hiv infection, there is a large proportion of cases in that community. we want to encourage people to get tested. our campaign is called "be positive you're negative."
we also, though to comply with the national strategy, need to get people into treatment. that can be a little bit more challenging because we need infrastructure to do that. but we are looking for primary care doctors in the state that are willing to accept hiv care
in their practices. we have a limited number of doctors, now, who have been serving the state for quite some time. some people think the health department actually provides primary care. we don't.
we don't do any primary care. so if there are any physicians in the state that would like to become a provider for this illness as well, then we definitely would like to train them and provide some literature. >> it looks to me like a
primary care physicians, of which i am one, sort of dropped out of the picture and deferred to the infectious disease specialists. but we don't have enough infectious disease specialists to even take care of the metropolitan areas, much less
all of these rural areas. >> no, and the other thing now is after 30 years of dealing with this epidemic, i think it's easier to manage hiv disease. i think maybe early on there was so much uncertainty that the specialists are really
pivotal. but now it is very similar to other chronic diseases like diabetes. it requires prescriptions. it requires monitoring. the people live a very long life now. the only way we will be able to
expand access to care is through increasing the provider population and also increasing the financing options for care. nobody will provide care for free. >> and that has always been the issue here with public health, hasn't it?
you guys get your funding primarily from the federal government because i understand we have the lowest per capita support of public health care in the state from the legislature then just about any state in the union. so you are constantly writing
grants to get funding. and hiv just keeps on going on, but the grant funding shifts from hiv to heart disease to so forth and you are stuck with the same chronic problem that is going on. do i have that wrong? >> we do get almost all of our
funding for sexually transmitted disease coming from the federal government. in recent years, we have had requirements where we have to provide a match, meaning we have to get nonfederal dollars, we have to get a portion of nonfederal dollars to match
some of our federal money that we get for hiv treatment. so we have had an appropriation from the state legislature, but it is a small amount, to help us with that match. but it is not the full match. we still have to look for other sources of funding to match the
federal money that we get for treatment. so it is a challenge for us. >> at first, they were in shock sort of like i was in disbelief. and now my family is kind of like sylvester's mom. they are worrying about me.
they are always saying are you okay? >> cedric sturtevant: it's more like a family instead of a group, just a group of guys that come. we do invite new guys in. but with hiv, you still got that fear factor.
even though i am hiv-positive, you come into a meeting where everyone else is hiv-positive, but you are afraid of who you might see. >> how is everybody doing? >> all right. >> leandro mena, m.d., medical director, open arms clinic: one
of the things that was evident is that hiv prevention, providing access to prevention and care services to the people who are most affected by hiv was important. in some other instances, we found that not having health insurance it was actually a
significant risk factor for hiv infection. not having a primary care provider was a significant risk factor for hiv infection. that even if you, as a gay man, went to a primary care provider, not being able to disclose your sexual
orientation was a risk factor probably because people were not able to receive any kind of hiv prevention education. so it was kind of evident that as a solution, one of the ways to address the hiv epidemic is actually to provide access to clinically and competent
healthcare services. that's the only reason why i have been involved in the past two or three years, kind of developing, helping clinicians, healthcare centers to develop services for the hiv populations. open arms is the flagship, i
guess, the battle fort. >> i have been hiv-positive knowing it for nine years now. i initially found out in march of 2005. i probably wouldn't have gotten tested then had it not been that my partner of six and a half years, they did a blood
drive at his job so when his results came back when they test the blood, they told him that he needed to go get checked. so he went and got checked and he was positive. so me being his partner, i had to go get checked as well.
after i found out my diagnosis was hiv-positive, me nor my partner actually sought basically we ignored it. at this time we were living in texas. i moved away three months later and moved to memphis. while i was in memphis, i was
going to the doctor, but not for hiv. i am a diabetic so i was going to the doctor and i never told him that i was hiv-positive. they never tested me. and then a year later, that's when i began to start feeling it, losing weight.
and it was june 6 of 2006 is when i got very, very sick and came home. that's when i got a phone call that my partner had passed away. >> we are talking about people who are young, who have a hard time understanding that a few
minutes ago felt invincible. and then you tell them that they have a serious condition. i try to avoid calling it a disease unless they have any symptoms. a condition that is incurable. but also, it's a diagnosis that is charged with so much stigma
and blame. and they ask what i did to deserve this. so you have to help them to go through the process of disassociating, or being able to identify the feelings that are associated with the fact that you are being told you have
a disease. when you are 21, 22 years old and now you have a disease that you never thought you were going to have. and second, one component of what you're feeling is actually derrived from the guilt and the homophobia and things that you
have actually learned being taught to you through your raising and the culture in which you grew up that probably are going to become important barriers for you accessing healthcare, staying in healthcare and being able to comply with your medical
>> dr. mena, he really makes me feel comfortable. he lets me know what's going on. i can always get in touch with him. he's not one of those doctors where it is impossible to talk to or get in touch with him.
he really does help. my name is antwan matthews, i attend tugaloo college majoring in biology. what i plan to do after college is be a healthcare administrator. i found out i was hiv-positive april 24 of 2013.
so next month will make a year. >> two days later, i went to the hospital. they sent me home and my mom came to memphis and we went back to the hospital and that's when they kept me for 13 days. about three days afterwards, the doctor came and told me i
had a fungus. i really don't recall what kind he said that was in my stomach. and it was the results of aids. while i was in the hospital and the doctor told me we don't have to tell your mother, but i was like we need to tell my mother because i need prayer.
so when my mother came back in the room and the doctor had left, i told her they had found out what was going on. and her thing was she always called me boy, so she was like boy, you are going to be okay. god got you. but she was always there.
she stayed in the hospital the entire time i was there. when i got out, i remained in memphis for a week and then she came to memphis and got me and i stayed with her. it was... it was like... it was like me being a baby all
over again. she had to take care of me. and she didn't treat me no bad way. i just get emotional every time i tell that story because i think about what my mother did for me and then a lot of the people i encounter, how their
family pushed them aside. >> my daddy is a preacher. when i told my daddy, it did go through my head that he's going to judge me. but at the same time, it's like he is a man of the lord so he knows the bible. and judging is something that
he don't really too much praise. so that was the reason i was like okay, i'm going to tell and when i told him, the first thing he was like it's a disease and you are going to die and this and that in so many words.
that's how he was coming off. but i had to let him know that hiv is not what it used to be in 1980. this is 2014. at that time, we finally realized that we can better ourselves if we take our medications and if we do all of
these things to stay healthy. if we don't, then that is when the numbers change. so i had to show him and when he would get to talking negative, i would let him know god has the last say so. so right now i am not really too much worried about dying.
i'm talking about living. >> my name is jovan beene. i go by zai. i have been hiv-positive five years. i have actually been in a relationship with somebody for about a year and seven months. of course we get tested and
everything with each other. basically we transitioned into usually not using condoms and come to find out that within the last month that we were dating, that he was cheating on me with somebody else and brought it back to me. i told my mentor and also my
spiritual father, cedric sturtevant. and that was the first person i he could relate. he was in the same position as me and then he told me several times to be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful. >> he came to me and he told me
that he tested positive for hiv. and it... it broke my heart. but i didn't let him know right then. i just talked to him and i told him that we are going to make sure that he gets in care. he's just like a biological son.
if ever i had a son, he is just like one. most of them are. i get the same love from them that i get from my daughters, my biological daughters. and they know, the guys, they know they are brothers, as they call them.
>> mom? she hung up the phone basically after i told her. didn't call me back for a little while. but she finally called back. haven't really talked about it. she just always says take care of yourself.
dad? he had told me that he was going to get some burial insurance just in case i die. really and truly, it was an i told you so kind of moment. >> i couldn't imagine being rejected by my mother at all. even when i told her that i was
gay, i could not imagine if she would've rejected me. but i want people to just show more love towards each other. if that's your child? god blessed you with that love him or her regardless of what goes on in their life. >> it's great to have dr. amy
nunn with us from brown i understand you are assistant professor of medicine and public health at brown university? >> yes sir. >> what brings you to >> well i have been doing hiv/aids research here for the last five or six years.
and this week, we are hosting a faith summit calling african-american clergy together to speak out and to learn about the state's hiv/aids crisis. >> so why are you directing your efforts to the faith-based groups in the state?
>> amy nunn, scd, assistant professor of public health and medicine, brown university: well the rates of hiv infection in mississippi are alarming. and most new infections are concentrated among african-americans. almost 80% of new infections in
mississippi are among african-americans and we think it is very important to get faith leaders involved to help spread awareness about this crisis and also to promote testing and treatment. >> so what is the connection between the african-american
church and hiv that you are addressing? that's not usually one we put together. >> well as you know, the african-american church has played an enormous role in the civil rights movement and also provides a lot of important
services in black communities. a lot of african-american churches also provide social and spiritual support for their communities. we are really hoping to get pastors involved to help spread awareness and also to help embrace people living with hiv.
a lot of the problem, i think, stems from the paralyzing stigma that is often associated and what we are hoping is that if pastors come together, they can help speak out about this issue and really help raise awareness about the importance of getting tested and treated.
>> as you said, the hiv epidemic started primarily in gay men and then it went to heterosexuals. and now it has popped up again and you are saying it's popping up primarily in african-american gay men? is that where it's popping up
this time? >> i think that nationwide, about half of new infections are concentrated among the epidemics vary in different parts of the country. some have a larger fraction attributed to injection drug use.
there are very high rates of infection among young african-american men in jackson. jackson has the second or third highest rates of infection among young black men of any city in the country. i think it is second only to
memphis and maybe houston. so we are seeing that the people who are getting infected have shifted over time. i think that is attributable to a couple of different things. a lot of this is related to the stigma. there is often a lot of stigma
associated with hiv and when there is a lot of stigma, people might be a lot less likely to get tested or people may just have limited access to health services. that's the other thing is if there aren't services in your community or you don't know
that you might be at risk, you might be a lot less likely to we also know now that treatment is a really effective prevention intervention. before, we knew that people living with hiv who took their medications could live long, healthy lives.
but now we also know that if people are on treatments, it reduces the chances they transmit the virus to almost zero. so now we know that treatment is prevention. however, a lot of people that are most likely to get infected
may not even know they are infected. so they may not be on treatments. so that creates this cycle of so that is one reason why it is so important to spread the word that everyone should get tested irrespective of what they think
their risk is or their risk behaviors and to really also focus on some of the communities that have the highest rates of infection like the african-american community, like young black men. >> what has happened among this population of gay young black
men that is different from any other explosion of this epidemic that we have seen previously? >> it's important to mention that african american men who have sex with men do have higher rates of infection than other populations.
but the epidemic isn't only limited to them. in the four places where hiv are clustered in mississippi: jackson, the gulf coast, the delta and hattiesburg; one of the common denominators there and across the country is that there is limited access to
you probably know since you do so much work on health care and health services in your show that mississippi has weak health infrastructure, particularly in some of the rural areas. so part of the challenge is really raising awareness about
this not being just a behavioral disease or something that affects people who are gay or men who have sex with men. it's really framing this as a health services and access issue. and that's something that we've been trying to do in partnership
with clergy as well. >> so why is an infectious disease that is sexually transmitted a civil rights issue? >> we are 30 years into the epidemic and i think we are in the middle of a social justice and scientific crisis.
african-americans have eight times the rate of hiv infection as whites and african american women have 17 times the rate as their white counterparts. those rates are alarming and what's particularly surprising and is worthy of a lot more attention is that
african-americans do not engage in any higher risk behaviors than people of other races. i want to say that again. african americans don't engage there's a whole body of literature that has explored this and this has been proven scientifically.
the crisis is that we can't tell you exactly why people of color are disproportionately impacted. we have some pretty good hypotheses like the things that i alluded to before about not having limited testing and treatment services. but in my mind, this is a civil
rights crisis. people aren't engaging in any higher risk behaviors and they are getting a lot sicker. i think the scientific community and the policy community really need to dedicate a lot more resources to unpacking this problem.
and one reason i am so passionate about engaging community leaders is that i think the solution starts with community leaders. it starts with community mobilization and getting leaders involved to help fight these issues.
we know down to the census tract, the census tract where people are getting infected. and yet we don't target our resources to those heavily impacted communities. if you go to a website called aidsview.org, you can see down to the zip code and census
tract where hiv infections are concentrated in mississippi, in urban areas across the community, and you see the hiv infections are clustered in communities of color and in poor communities. and the civil rights issue is that we are not targeting those
communities with massive amounts of resources related to social marketing to promote testing, with testing services and treatment services. and i think not directing resources is a real civil rights issue. one of the things that has come
out of my scientific research with clergy is that civil rights are a great way to frame this conversation with clergy. sometimes conversations about health behaviors and human sexuality and homophobia in faith settings can be divisive. some people don't want to talk
about those things at church because some people believe that it might be incongruent with the kinds of conversations that they should be having at church. black pastors are often very willing to embrace conversations about civil rights.
they are often very willing to talk about health disparities. they are also willing to talk about testing and treatment. i think that is a good example of why it is so important to ask clergy how do we frame these conversations, because if we hadn't done that a few years
ago, i wouldn't know how to address these issues with clergy. but they told us if we frame this as a civil rights issue, if we frame this conversation about testing and treatments, that is a message that works for me at church.
that is a message that resonates with my congregation. >> rev. al sharpton: when i travel around the country and i see the data where you see the amount of blacks that have been deemed positive, hiv-positive, or that have aids and then you see how the resources are spent
and how the health education is available and you see resources spent more in areas where there are proportionately less, that becomes a civil rights issue and that is something that we are partnering with the healthcare foundation about. >> dr. alyn e. walker, enon
tabernacle baptist church, philadelphia, pa: the ignorance that the church has had in the past of assuming that if we can point to someone's behavior as the reason for what they have, then all of a sudden we do not have to care or have concern for them which i think is not
biblical, which i think is not practical, and not what jesus would do. and so today i tried to point out that even when jesus encounters a man is at the pool of bethesda, that was a man who had done something to get there. but jesus' first words to him
were not words of judgment and condemnation. they were words that offered help. after he received the help, then jesus gave him some words of how not to get there again. and that is the paradigm for the church: help first, point
in the new direction second. >> rev. andre harris, new jerusalem baptist church, cleveland, ms: any time you attach hiv and aids with any individual in the mississippi delta, you are pretty much an outcast. so with that being said, what
we're trying to do is just starting a dialogue in the churches. once we get the pastors to step out of their comfort zone and speak about sex and hiv and aids, then we can have more conversation on how to fight the but until we do that, it's
going to be hard to dismiss the >> the pandemic of hiv and aids is significant and serious throughout the world. it is critical in the african-american experience and the african diaspora. so number one, we are doing what jesus would do because i
think if you were to equate hiv with leprosy of jesus' day, we have to follow his example of how to deal with that. and so it is a major issue. and it's a major issue because it's also a very preventable disease if we will address both the personal responsibility
issues and the systemic issues that lend themselves to seeing where hiv is and how it is growing. >> rev. c.j. rhodes, director of religious life, alcorn state university: there are definitely ways that alcorn has committed to teaching people about getting
tested and there's a place on campus, but we want to help them make better ethical decisions. and if they do receive it, provide care and counsel for them. >> we are doing different outreach in the community first
with the bolivar county baptist association. so we are going to start with those steps and then we are going to go into the churches. >> i do believe homosexuality is sin. my message to the people of faith is abstinence.
be faithful. humanity is if you have another ethic, at least protect yourself so that you can protect the human family. >> dr. alfio has been in the public health district 3 in the mississippi delta for several decades.
he and dr. rick explore the particular challenges the delta has with this public health crisis. >> let's talk a little bit about this outbreak of hiv which i understand is one that has occurred throughout the country but is amplified in
mississippi of hiv in african- americans, primarily african american young males. tell us a little bit about what you're seeing. >> alfio rausa, m.d., district health officer in northwest ms and the delta, ms health department: first if you look
at the population spread from little kids to old men, the most sexually active are that group 19 to 24 to 34. young, virile, out to have a good time kind of business, invincible, nothing is going to happen to me kind of business. the issue is sexual activity.
if you don't have sexual activity, other than for the unborn child, the pregnant woman that's got hiv infection, you don't get it. when we start to talk about sex, the church clams up, the family clams up, the neighborhood clams up.
it's a subject that, for some reason, everybody knows about but no one wants to talk about. >> you didn't have this particular explosive increase in hiv in the delta until recently. it was controlled. so what were you doing?
have you stopped doing it or what? >> no, we are still doing the educational piece in the health department. i think part of it is that we are not poor like we were poor before, but we are poor. and we have poor housing, we
have really a decline in the educational system. leflore county had an exceptional educational system, i mean big time. i remember getting with an assistant superintendant, we did a lot of projects with the kids in the schools and exams
and health education, health promotion. we even were doing for the high schools classes on sex. now we have about three years of debate whether we can teach sex in the schools, say no and things like that. that was in the schools 30
years ago. >> so actually this whole discussion about abstinence or abstinence plus has been a barrier to communicating between the professionals and the potential patients. and that word is not getting out.
that's one of the troubles. >> the churches are letting me down, or letting us down, and the doctors, too. unless the patient says they have a complaint that might trigger something in the private sector or at these community health centers, they
don't get screened. and one of the problems we have, why the black male is so outstanding if you would in numbers is that if you come to the health department for sexually transmitted disease problem, you are going to get tested for hiv.
you come to the health department for prenatal care, you are going to be tested for department for family planning, you're going to be tested for so we are testing the black population which is about 85% to 90% of the patients we see in the health departments in
the delta. it's not that you are over testing. they are getting good care and we are finding cases where the rest of the folks don't know what their status is and that is one of the strategies that we have been trying to get
going this last year or so is that everyone, if they are sexually active, ought to be tested once or twice a year. >> antwan matthews: after my crying and all of that, i just got myself together and started making up a plan. i decided to come up with a
health club which i started at tougaloo college last semester. and the health club is the tougaloo healthcare educators. and "health" stands for helping educating abiding learning teaching healing. what we do with an awareness group on all diseases so it's
not just hiv, it's not just breast cancer, it's thyroid we do different diseases each month. so that's what i decided to do instead of just sit back and blame everyone for my problems. i decided to take action for my own problems and do something.
>> eric bailey: well you have to understand as a bi-sexual person myself, that still lays down with a woman that knows my story and that knows what i do outside of that household, truth will set you free. my name is eric lee bailey. i'm from bolton, mississippi.
i am 34 years of age. i have been hiv-positive for approximately 15 years now. ole miss, i will be at the lgbt law symposium. i will be there to talk about hiv in the state of mississippi, encouraging people to go get tested, making sure that they
have resources in the delta area, in the memphis area and on back up to jackson where they can go. i will be providing phone numbers for them. i'll be telling my story. and i will be taking questions and answers from some of the
professors and/or students that may be there at that particular time. but when they run across my profile, it has my status: hiv-positive. the next thing i know, i started going to advocacy work then started being an advocate
which i started leading with the mississippi health department with caring services. i became the community co-chair there. after that, i started working with grace house which is a transitional housing for people
with aids and/or hiv. >> what are the biggest myths about this? >> kissing! oh my god, kissing. really? do you know how much saliva, how much longer a long kiss would have to be?
you would have to start kissing today and then probably in 2020 you might have a little small strain to come through. >> valencia robinson: and you have to have some blood, and it has to have a route. so it's not as simple to contract hiv as people think,
but i don't want people to go out there and just be all willy-nilly especially because medications out there. what do we hear the most? "we have medication. i'm going to be good." i started doing this work volunteering in 2003.
these are stats from 2012. december 31, 2012. the age group 13 to 24 with hiv disease, we have 551 new infections. i didn't know my dad had died from complications due to aids. i thought he died from cirrhosis of the liver because
he was an alcoholic. and to find that out, i knew then i was where i was supposed to be. and i just like helping people. i love helping people. >> what i'm doing here today is actually to tell my testimony, my story on how to maintain a
healthy lifestyle with hiv because i always have to remind people that hiv lives with you. you don't live with hiv. >> according to the centers for disease control, the fourth-largest number of all new hiv infections in the us occurred among african-american
females with heterosexual contact. fenessa halsell is one of the thousands of women infected >> my name is fenessa halsell. i have been hiv-positive since 1998. i am a peer counselor here at the southeast mississippi rural
health initiative here in hattiesburg, mississippi. i do rapid testing for potential people who may have been exposed to the virus. we meet with positive people and we give them a meal and we teach them about how to survive being positive.
in here, we are empowered. these are condoms. these can make the difference between hiv-positive and hiv- negative. and as a woman, we encourage them to get the condoms. you have to think outside the box.
you don't want to teach infidelity. no, we are not teaching it. what we are doing is sending a message that you need to protect yourself. i worked at forrest general hospital for 18 years. in that, i met a gentleman and
eventually we got married. i was switching jobs because i wanted to work eight-hour shifts so could have more time at home. i had to do a physical for hattiesburg clinic. and that's when i found out that my test was positive.
initially, i didn't tell anybody. at the same time when i was finding out i was positive, my husband had some issues going on with his health. and so i kept insisting that he go to the doctor. and so finally when he went, i
asked them to just do a whole panel on him. he was hiv-positive and he was in what they call the arc. that's a term that the old physicians used to use where it's right at the doorway for having aids. i tell people, when you marry,
you don't know what all you are getting into. and the way i was raised, it said for better or for worse. that means you had to be there. and so when it got worse, we just decided we are together. we are going to be together. i go through blaming him, or he
blaming me because overall, i still loved him. and honestly, it could have been me that infected him or it could have been him that infected me because neither one of us were virgins. i just took him as he was. my love for him was real.
and before he left, he always told me i thank you for staying. i asked, where was i going? i mean, i loved you. i mean... i loved you. you were always good to me. you're always good to my kids.
my family loves you so we are team. and that's what we chose to do. women need to understand that it can happen to them. we are not elite from this. it can happen to you because we, as women, love with our hearts and that is one of the
things that i learned. if we had had the conversation, because when a gentleman opens the door for you or he does the things that you feel you need for that comfort, then you are not looking at okay, where have you been? how were your past
relationships? those are questions that need to be asked. it doesn't make you less of a person because sometimes men get on the defensive about that, but as women, you've got to love yourself. you've got to love yourself the
most and say, i'm going ask these questions because that one encounter can affect you for the rest of your life. >> melissa faith payne: hiv is not a death sentence. according to the mississippi health department, the number of deaths due to hiv disease
has declined sharply due to the advent of highly-active anti-retroviral therapy introduced as treatment in the mid 1990's. however, living with hiv and aids does have its challenges. today we do have a panel of guests all living with hiv and
some have lived with it for a few months and others, almost two decades. i want to thank you guys for coming, welcome you and really thank you guys for coming in and sharing your stories. i want to open up this discussion with a question.
the number of cases has sharply increased among african american males between the ages of 13 and 29. fenessa, why do you think that is so? >> fenessa halsell: i think because a lot of our youths feel like they are invincible
and that it cannot happen to if we don't teach them, then they don't think it's real. they think it can happen to someone else when it is right there in our own neighborhoods and we are just not talking about it among ourselves or in the home, then i think we
are going to keep seeing our numbers increase. >> anybody else want to jump in? cody, you are one of the younger guys. >> cody walker: i totally agree with what she is saying. i had that same mentality.
when i was not positive, i used to do whatever i wanted to because i had superman syndrome. we are all superman. we are all superheroes. we are not going to get it until it is greatly in our face and affect us one on one.
otherwise it is just someone else. it's not us. it's never us. it's always that other person. >> wow. but it is you guys. go ahead. >> nick nicholas: i think it's
also not helpful the mixed messages we are getting from the public health authorities like the department of health and the cdc. they are de-emphasizing hiv at this point. so it is sending out the message that hiv is not as
important as it used to be. so there may be this sense of complacency. >> cedric, i want you to jump in right here just a little. >> cedric sturdevant: i was sitting here thinking. a lot of our young people, there are a lot of issues and
situations they have going on. one, there is no sex education in the school. so we need to get sex education back in the schools. a stigma which really plays a big role: if some of these young african-american men are men who are having sex with
men, then you are looking at that fear factor where they can't be themselves. so they may do it secretly and may not think about using protection. >> i want to ask antwan this number, 13 to 29, you are right smack dab in the middle of it.
what are your thoughts? >> antwan matthews: well, like everyone says, we always think that it can't happen to us, but it really can. so i think it affects more in college students because we are in a stage where we are just experiencing life.
we are just like, i am out of my mom's house i can do what i want to do. we are messing around with everybody not thinking. so what i try to practice is teach the school is safe sex. regardless females or males, you can use condoms.
you are old enough to buy cigarettes, you can do everything else, so let's go buy condoms. >> you talked about college students. marcus, that is you. tell us a bit about your thoughts.
>> marcus mcpherson: just to add to what antwan and pretty much everyone else has been saying, young people not thinking that it could happen to them, i have talked to several people. a lot of people don't think that it could ever happen to
i was one of those people. and then you also have this group that believes that because they are gay, because they are black, because they are female that they are eventually going to get it. so they don't try to practice those safe sex practices that
could possibly reduce their chances of getting it. >> do you find that it's hard to talk to people in your family about your diagnosis, about your status? robin, what about you with your dad as a pastor? >> robin webb: yes, my dad was.
he is deceased. he was a southern baptist minister and very embracing of my own story back in the late 1980's as was my mother and my entire family. but it didn't change the fact that it is extremely difficult conversation to have.
i think it also brings up the subject of religion in relation to hiv and how the church, we have that opportunity and invitation now in our churches. no one who becomes hiv-positive or has a diagnosis wants to get kicked out of the church or not be able to turn to their pastor
or turn to their spiritual source for help. >> robin was saying we need the that is a place where we ought to be able to go and not be judged. until people get that in their minds that the church is for all.
jesus went amongst all the... he didn't go to the people that were in church. he went to the people who were not in the church because they were the ones who needed him. so if i am coming to you, i don't want you to beat me up when i get there.
>> as she said with the church, especially here in the deep south, they really need to realize that the church is supposed to be a place of healing for all illness. and that's just not the physical illness, but also mental illness, the whole
thing. and the churches in the south, some of them are basically slowly coming around. but you shouldn't shun a person because of their sexual orientation, their hiv status, or anything. >> let me ask you this.
i'm going to switch gears just a little bit. in addition to the african american men that are contracting hiv, there is also african american women. in many cases, these are women whose male partners may also have other male partners.
do you want to talk a little bit about that? talk a little bit about the down low. can you address that? >> me personally, i don't believe there is such a word. >> do you even think there is such a thing?
>> eric bailey: i don't know of such a word. let me tell you about the gay community, what they do. they call it "trade." wherever they got that word or terminology from, they can just sweep that under the rug because they talk a lot.
and you heard that a lot from everybody on this panel how everybody talks. when you go inside the house with a gay person, especially one that identifies themselves as a "sissy," they are going to sit there and they are going to tell your business as soon as
you walk out of that door. so there is no such thing as down low because once you cross over to that, you may be bisexual, but you are not on no >> okay. fenessa, you are a black woman. >> i say for the women, we have to take responsibility for our
part in this. it's not just a one-sided thing. you can't just fault him for that and for his, what, bi-curious i guess they say? but know what your man is doing. check him if you need to check >> i want to weigh in on the-- >> i was kind of coming back to
you on that. (laughter) since you stepped back in, go ahead. >> we have to look at a lot of other factors with the guys. i'm like eric. the "down low"... >> you don't believe in it?
>> that's not. even because there are some guys who may only have sex with guys and still don't want to be identified as gay. >> well then what do you identified as if you only have sex with guys? >> they just say they like what
they like. and you also have guys who use sex for survival. i guess one of the reasons why they say men don't have sex with men to identify if you have sex with men, to not just say okay, he's gay, he's bi or he's dl or any of that.
but just to characterize men who have sex with men whether he just had one for us experiencing anything or any of that. >> now you are from the delta. and cody you are from the delta. what is it about the delta?
is it hard to come out as a gay man? what is going on? >> i think we can both agree on this. it's lack of education. and you have these people that are extreme bible-pushers. being gay is a sin and that
also plays into the dl thing. a lot of that problem is that guys don't want to say they are having sex with men because it is considered a sin and people are going to talk about it. >> let me wrap this up, but i want to ask you guys, you are all living with hiv, living
with aids. you look wonderful. you are healthy. you are outgoing, advocating in the community. what do you want to say to people about living with hiv/aids? educate them about what you
guys have gone through, your journey, and what they can do? >> i just want them to get tested, get educated and hold these organizations that are out there doing the work accountable for the money that they receive. >> we are hiv-positive and some
of us have been diagnosed with aids. but we do have lives, we have feelings, we have goals, aspirations. we want to get places. we are not just our hiv status. >> in this day and age, we as individuals are all responsible
for making our own choices to what happens to our own bodies and nobody else. you can't blame it on anybody else except in cases of violence and rape. we have to take ownership of our own choices in terms of staying away from hiv
>> that's all the time we have. please visit southern remedy at: >> from all of us at southern remedy, good night.
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