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WHY BELLE GLADE?
What the studies could not do was answer the
question of how AIDS found its way into Belle Glade in the first place.
Castro and Lieb tried to find out. They theorized
that widespread sharing of contaminated needles among heroin addicts
in the early 1980s probably was to blame.
They pored through seven years' worth of death
certificates from Belle Glade, looking for a surge in heroin
overdoses. But the search turned up nothing. "It remains a
hypothesis," Castro said.
Unraveling the mysteries of Belle Glade's AIDS
outbreak took nine months. The next goal-- persuading poor blacks in
Belle Glade that avoiding AIDS meant changing attitudes learned
almost from childhood- - still hasn't been achieved. Despite a host
of AIDS education programs, public service announcements and outreach
counseling, AIDS is thriving in western Palm Beach County.
More than 400 people living in the Glades are known
to be HIV-infected, health officials say. Since 1981, 336 Glades
residents have contracted full- blown AIDS, and 218 have died.
Ninety-seven percent of the AIDS patients living in the western part
of the county are black.
PREVENTION EFFORT STYMIED
There were problems with the prevention effort from
the start. Morale among staffers with the AIDS Health Education/Risk
Reduction Project, which began operating in 1987, was chronically low.
"It was like inventing the wheel," Lieb
said. "None of us knew the best way to go about prevention out there."
As recently as May 1989, Lieb noted in a memo that
"a potentially serious morale problem may be developing" at
the state-run HIV Prevention Center in Belle Glade.
Frustration is a familiar feeling to AIDS educators
overwhelmed by the sheer number of victims and potential victims
populating the Glades, health officials say.
Many ghetto residents never accept the notion that
someone who appears healthy could be carrying -- and transmitting-- a
deadly virus.
Condoms still are unpopular among black men raised
to believe that sex without protection connotes masculinity,
according to field worker Jerningan, who is black and was raised in
Belle Glade.
KILLING A POPULATION
Dr. Deanna James, director of the C.L. Brumback
Community Health Center in Belle Glade, predicted in August that
unless trends are reversed, AIDS will eventually wipe out most of the
black population in the Glades.
Health officials say their education programs are
helping-- studies show that the number of people in the Glades who
know what AIDS is and how it can be transmitted is steadily increasing.
And they say more ghetto residents are taking AIDS seriously.
Anna Ball, 29, a former crack addict living in one
of the most run- down buildings in Belle Glade's slum, has sworn off
drugs and anonymous sex since testing negative for exposure to the
HIV virus six months ago.
"When the nurse told me it was negative, I
just cried and cried and cried," Ball said. "I thought if
anyone should have it, it should be me."
Ball says she has sex now only with her boyfriend,
a forklift operator. She spends most of her time drinking beer and
chatting with neighbors outside her second-floor apartment.
AIDS counselors also note that they are handing out
more condoms than ever. To boost demand, they began handing out
colored condoms last year, noting in a memo to Lieb that "given
a choice, the client will select colored condoms over plain condoms
nearly every time."
Lieb himself, an amateur musician, even wrote a
radio jingle called Cover Me to increase interest in condom use. He
said the jingle, which began airing in 1988, received a positive
response from Glades residents.
One problem is the overpowering influence of drugs
in a place where a chemical high offers an easy escape from a life of
abject poverty.
ANGER FUELS EPIDEMIC
The intravenous drugs that were in vogue in the
early 1980s-- injectable cocaine, heroin, Dilaudid -- have given way
to crack. But sex is still reliable currency.
Prostitutes sell themselves for drugs-- or money to
buy drugs-- in apartments known as "trick rooms." The going
rate these days is $3 for 15 minutes.
"If you knew a person had AIDS and you were
high on crack, you'd still do it," said Ball. "Crack makes
you have no fear."
Anger also keeps the epidemic alive. Some
embittered HIV carriers have vowed to spread the virus to others.
Others are afraid to tell their sexual partners, or anyone else.
The result is a neighborhood that is wasting away.
"Most of the people I knew there have died by
now," said Darleen Lee, a registered nurse who supervised the
health department clinic in Belle Glade between 1985 and 1987.
"I stopped asking about my friends. There's
nobody to ask about any more."
*part 2 sidebar: 'Lots
of Sex Out There; Just Name It, They Do It'
*beginning of part 2
*beginning of part 1
*AIDS facts
*top
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