WHEN I saw the full-page
ad in The Globe and Mail, |
did a double take.

By Catherine Atyeo
Contributing Writer

But yes, there he was in black
and white. Decked out in a casual
suede jacket, worn over a trendy
patterned shirt with coordinating
belt and pants and topped off by
a jaunty wool plaid beret.

He had the look. He had the
style, And all of eight years old.

No way any eight-year-old boy
wants to return to the schoolyard
looking like he just came from a
G@Q cover shoot, And if a lot of
cight-year-old kids out there are
being encouraged by adults to
place primary importance on &
stunningly coordinated wardrobe,
then this society's value systems
are in more trouble than |
thought.

The ad in The Globe and Mail
reminded me of an experience |
had in San Francisco three years
ago. My mother, sister and I were
shopping in a department store in
a section beside the children's
clothing area. | glanced over and
saw two parents occupicd with
outfitting their young son, who
must have been about cight. The
father put a navy wool sweater
with an English hunting scene on
his son.

When the family had left, con-
sumed by curiosity, | walked over

and looked at the price of the
sweater. It was $230.

I used to justify such expen-
ditures by saying, OK, if you've
worked hard and made a fot of
moncy, you darned well have the
right to buy your kid a $236
sweater. And even Jesus, the oriz-

Friday, September 13, 1991 — North Shore News - 7

INSIGHTS

style

Mint Gather

MCPTH SHORE WEWS.

inal social rebel, said the poor
(and by implication, the rich) will
always be with us.

Of course, individuals have the
right to spend their money in the
way they choose. But surely as
parents we have a responsibility to
pass on other values to children,

Collins’ AIDS views are
simply ‘fear-mongering’

Dear Editor:
J have been asked by coa-
cerned readers of the North

Shore News to respond to
Doug Collins’ column entitled
““When it comes to AIDS,
human rights can be wrong”’
(August 7).

Dr. Lorraine Day, the cen-
tral figure of the article, is an
orthopedic surgeon from San
Francisco General Hospital.

Dr. Day’s arguments, unfor-
tunately, tend to be based on
partial truths and anecdotal ev-
idence. For example, it is cer-
tainly well-known that HfV has
been recovered from peripheral
blood, semen, saliva, tears,
alveolar fluid, cerebrospinal
fluid, brain tissue, and cervical
and vaginal secretions.

. What people like Dr. Day
often neglect to mention con-
cerning the isolation of HIV in
saliva, for example, is that
HIV could be recovered from
the saliva of only I in 71 AIDS
patients, and was present only
in extremely low concentration
in the single positive culture.

They also ignore the fun-
damental fact that the mere
presence of the virus in a tissue
or fluid is not sufficient to
establish that the particular
tissue or fluid represents a
mode of HIV transmission.

Factors determining whether

a tissue or fluid can give rise to
transmission include the con-
centration and viability of the
virus within the tissue or fluid:
access io the tissue or fluid to a
portal of entry into a suscepti-
ble host; local host immune
defences at or near the site of
entry; and access to the in-
vading agent to target cells or
tissues.

People like Mr. Collins and
Dr. Day fear monger concern-
ing casual contact.

First, of the over 100,000
cases of AIDS reported in
North America to date, no
cases have occurred in the fam-
ily member of an AIDS patient
which could not be explained
on the basis of other estab-
lished risk factors. Second, a
number of prospective studies
have monitored several hun-
dred family members or close
contacts of AIDS patients
and/or HIV-infected persons
for indications of HIV infec-
tion. The types of contacts that
were experienced over protong-
ed periods of time in’ these
studies included the sharing cof
toiets, baths, kitchens, dishes,
cating utensils, combs,
toothbrushes, razors, as well as

close body contact.
Often, family members

would clothe, bathe, and feed
persons with AIDS daily for up

to two years or more. None of
these studies has documented
instances of HIV infection
which could not be attributed
to established modes of
transmission.

Given hundreds of thousands
and perhaps millions of people
infected with HIV and living
among us in North America, if
HIV could be spread by casual
contact where are the
thousands of bystanders who
have been casually infected
with this virus?

If Mr. Collins is right, and
he is certainly not, then using
his exampies, thousands of
nurses and doctors should be
dead from being ‘‘breathed’’
upon by people with AIDS,
thousands of restaurant
patrons should be dead from
eating contaminated food, and
hundreds if not thousands of
children shouid be dead from
nosebleeds in the schoolyard.

Proponents of the casual
contact fear-mongering school
of thought must be challenged
to produce evidence of these
myriads of cases of AIDS
rather than the usual 1 or 2
anecdotes.

Martin T. Schechter,
MSc, PhD

Faculty of Medicine, UBC
National Advisory Committee
on AIDS

MD,

In the face of the gluttonous
consumerism of our North Amer-
ican society, parents have to take
a stand for values other than
those paraded through advertising
and shopping malls. When [ say
take a stand, Pm not talking
about denying a child who comes

to you once or twice a year for
that hot pair of runners. I'm talk-
ing about inculcating the belief in
children that, while clothes can be
fun, something as superficial as
clothes is not of central impor-
tance in life.

PE went to a high school that was
particularly ruthless when it came
to judging individuals by their
apparel, mainly because of the
sororities and fraternities that set
the dress code for the entire
school population,

At my high school, there was a
relatively small elite who knew
The Way To Dress and intimi-
dated the heck out of the rest of
us who had no money. fashion
sense or self-esteem.

But even in my pubescent con-
fusion I looked at the princesses
of fashion in my school and told
myself. **This is crap."

I could hardly wait to get out of
there. In university you could
wear jeans, or whatever, and no-
body would single you out.

Don’t get me wrong, | was no
Mother Theresa. But in my 16-
year-old mind J knew that this ex-
cessive importance given to clothes
was nonsense. Perhaps because
my parents tried to pass on to me
what they believed was really of
value in life — family, friends of
different backgrounds and
cultures, the joy of learning
through book:. and travel, music
and a spiritual life.

f think there are still parents
like mine — at least I sure hope
there are.

Additional tips on
avoiding AIDS virus

Dear Editor:

Thank you for publishing Mr.
Collins’ insightful article on AIDS
(August 7).

As a service to your readers !
have condensed the main points in
Mr. Collins’ article. Additional
suggestions are also provided to
help them avoid what Mr. Collins
has so delicately described as
“Gay Botch.”’

1. Consider doing your own
dental work. To this end }
recommend a new series of do-it-
yourself books available at better
book stores everywhere. Biggest
seller to date is ‘‘The Twenty
Minute Root Canal.’’ In the fall 1
understand the series will be ex-
tended to incisde almost all
surgical operations.

2. Do not sit on toilet seats. To

help you in this, | draw your at-
tention to a handy suspension
system which is available in most
department stores. One size fits
most North Shore cubicles, and
the device folds up compactly so
that it can be carried around in
the average purse or funch bucket.
The system should be operated
with care, however. A number of
instances have been reported
where the system failed, leading to
rather disastrous consequences.
3.Don’t play soccer with
homos. In fact, with all the pansy
kissing and hugging, not to men-
tion the disgusting bum-patting
that goes on during soccer games,
tt may be safer not to play soccer
at all.
David Reid
Vancouver

Collins terms ‘shocking’

Dear Editor:

As a newcomer to the North
Shore, | revel in the friendliness,
freshness of the air and sense of
community.

I suppose nothing is perfect, but
the difficulty I have is finding
Doug Collins’ incorrect, and
therefore, offensive, columns in
my community newspaper. Recent
columns on AIDS and ‘‘human
rights,’’ with terms such as
“*homo-lovers’” and ‘organized
Jewry’’ shock me.

International experts on AIDS,
no longer a new disease, indicate

no doubt that it is only
transmissible through the ex-
change of body fluids, namely
blood, semen, and vaginal fluid.

Secondly, the decision has been
made repeatedly through our
Supreme Courts that it is not ac-
ceptable for a teacher or writer to
deny the reality of the Holocaust
publicly in the classroom or
through published works.

These are the judgments of the
experts. | accept them more than |
accept Doug Collins’ opinions.
Carol Longman
North Vancouver