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AIDS’ came to West Van-
couver last Wednesday.

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW
News Reporter

Vancouver AIDS patient Allan
Pletcher told an audience of about

25 at West Vancouver Secondary -

School’s theatre that he no longer
considered his illness to be a death
sentence.

He refused, he said in his emo-
tional address, to. be branded an
‘AIDS victim’ and he refused to
give in to the disease.

“IT am so damn determined to
beat this thing,’’ he said.

Pletcher likened his battle to
that of the first man to break the
four-minute mile. ;

‘*Before that barrier was
broken, no one thought it could'be
done,” Pletcher said. ‘‘And it was
broken only because one person
decided he was going to do it.""

GIVEN 56 WEEKS

“When I was first diagnosed as
having AIDS on May 3, I was
given S6 weeks to live,"’ he con-
tinued. ‘‘Weil 1 want to show that
I can live longer. than 56 weeks.
That! arn not a statistic that } am
a human being.”” -

Pletcher said “he believed
anything ‘could be beaten with the
combined arsenal of positive at-
titude and emotional support.

-University of B.C.
epidemiologist Richard Mathias
told the audience thar though
AIDS remained a ‘major public
‘health problem with ‘as yet no
known cure, new studies showed

. the virus could not be transmitted
» through casual contact.

BOB TIVEY
AIDS PROJECT DIRECTOR

“We now believe there must be
an. exchange of cells in order for
AIDS to be transmitted from ‘one

“person to another,’’ Mathias said.
:“A person cannot be infected with
‘anything. less. than complete in-

timate contact.’’.

. Mathias said that nine recent
studies of people living in
household situations with carriers
of the AIDS virus showed no
transmission of the disease to the
uninfected, despite typically close
inter-household contact and the
shared use of such things as
toothbrushes,

ALLAN PLETCHER |
“AIDS SURVIVOR

There was no evidence, Mathias
added, that AIDS could be con-

tracted through saliva, tears or any,

oral exposure. .

Of 1,700 American health care
workers exposed to the AIDS virus
through splashing infected blood
or other body fluids into eyes or
open cuts or accidently injecting
themselves with infected needles,
Mathias said, 28 had subsequently
tested positively for the AIDS an-
tibody. ©

Twenty-five of that 28 were
known to have other high risk fac-
tors, Mathias added.

HUMAN DISEASE

Mathias, who said he had been
involved in AIDS research since
1982, described the illness as a
viral. infection exclusive to human
beings.

The HTLV-II virus, he said,
could be transmitted through the
exchange of sexual fluids, either
rectally or vaginally, or through
the exchange of blood during
transfusions or intravenous drug
use.

The latter category,
said, was the fastest
source of AIDS infection.

While Canada thus far had only
one case of an AiDS patient in-
fected through iniravenous drug
use, ‘‘17 per cent of all the current
AIDS patients in the United States
originated from intravenous drug
use,’’ Mathias said.

There are currently 16,000 AIDS
patients in the United States and
435 documented cases in Canada
as of Jan. 6.

Mathias
growing

By Feb. 3, the Canadian number
had risen to 479.

AIDS DOUBLING

The current statistics represent a
doubling of AIDS cases since 1981,
Mathias said.

Though Ontario currently has
the greatest number of AIDS pa-
tients, Mathias said B.C., with 28
cases per one million population,
had the highest AIDS percentage.

As of Jan. 20, there were 82
reported cases of AIDS in B.C.

And while three quarters of Ca-
nadian AIDS patients were
homosexual or ‘bisexual males, the
virus had now been documented in
both mates and females in age
groups from infants to 50 years
old, Mathias said.

He added that not all infants
born to AIDS infected mothers
were themselves infected.

Exactly how the AIDS virus was
transmitted from mother to infant,
he said, was thus far unknown.

Only a small percentage of those
infected with the AIDS virus, be-
tween five and 10 per cent, actually
developed the illness, Mathias said.

DONATIONS NEEDED

Project director for AIDS Van-
couver Bob Tivey told the audience
that the organization, founded in
1982, was ‘now partially funded by
the federal government, but need-
ed donations to effectively carry
out its mandates’ of providing
emotional support. for AIDS pa-
tients and public information into
the cause, prevention and even-
tual cure of the illness.

DR. ) RICHARD MATHIAS

A major AIDS Vancouver pro-
ject, he said, was to establish a
hospice for AIDS patients.

And Tivey said his group would
like to lobby the provincial gov-
ernment to establish a viral culture

laboratory in B.C., where the
AIDS virus could be cultivated and
researched.

3 - Wednesday, February $2, 1986 - North Shore News