THE AIDS THREAT

While February's highly publicized Festival of Life may have led many people at Harvard to consider the impact of the AIDS crisis for the first time, the threat of the disease is nothing new to the Harvard gay community. For some, the specter of AIDS has dramatically altered individual mind sets as well as behavior.

Already at Harvard, three staff people and one graduate student have contracted AIDS since early last year, says Dr. Warren E.C. Wacker, director of University Health Services. Three of those patients died as a result of complications stemming from the AIDS virus.

But in terms of the disease's emotional and social dimensions, students and administrators alike say the impact of AIDS on this campus clearly exceeds these four isolated cases.

"It is psychologically very difficult to think of potential partners as potential infectors," says Suzanne E. Litke '87, an Adams House resident who thinks that AIDS has made finding a relationship "a lot scarier."

"AIDS puts a whole new level of gravity into sex...Gay people have had to think about death as they think about sex--which is not a welcome combination for people our age. I definitely see this at Harvard," says one member of the Gay and Lesbian Students Association (GSLA), who asked not to be identified.

Lorelee Stewart '87, GLSA co-chairman, says the AIDS threat has inhibited some gays from opening up to others. "I've seen some people with very good and natural attitudes towards sex become closed off," the Cabot House resident adds.

"Among my small circle of friends, I see a lot of anxiety. They feel inhibited. They have opted for close friendships rather than sexual relationships sometimes," Stewart says.

Other students, like Jake Stevens '86, say that more people today are practicing "safe sex."

"[AIDS] has probably cut down on promiscuity," says Ann Pellegrini '86, adding that at Harvard, those who were promiscuous were in the minority.

The AIDS threat also has contributed to an increased tendency toward monogamy in the gay community, says James A. Sanks '86, who with Stewart co-chairs the GLSA. "There have always been emotional risks in being non-monogamous, but now there are clear health risks," Pellegrini says.

Sanks says he is particularly concerned about the impact of AIDS on "a lot of gay people who have not yet come out of the closet." Other campus leaders concur with Sanks, citing a reluctance in some undergraduates to take steps toward becoming "openly gay" because of the AIDS stereotype.

Noting that college is often a time when a gay person first acknowledges his homosexuality or has his first sexual experience, one student agrees. "At Harvard, people are more reluctant to label themselves as gay because of AIDS. You frequently hear people say it's too dangerous," he says.

Harvard's health services' director emphasizes that AIDS is not merely a disease of gay men, despite a recent assertion by the Centers for Disease Control that 73 percent of AIDS patients are gay or bisexual men. "To say that this is a disease of gays, hemophiliacs, and intravenous drug-users is untrue. There is a potential for the virus to get into the whole community," Wacker says.

Protecting Patients

Given this potential, university administrators have been compelled to think about the need to develop policies to protect people with the disease as well as others on campus. Yet Wacker says that Harvard has no set policy concerning students who contract AIDS.

"It is my understanding that there are no reasons whatsoever why a person with AIDS would not be able to continue as a student. The university's point of view is that AIDS is not a contagious disease," says Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57.

Most medical authorities, including doctors at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, say that the AIDS virus can be transmitted through blood transfusions and sexual contact. While no cases of AIDS resulting from casual contact have been documented, doctors are still exploring the possibility that the disease can be transmitted through saliva, tears, and sweat.

As of March 10, the disease control center reported that since 1979, more than half of the reported 18,070 AIDS cases resulted in death.

Dr. Martin S. Hirsch, an associate professor at the Medical School, says the AIDS virus has an incubation period of anywhere from a few months to several years.

"It would be impossible to say how many people at Harvard or any other college have been exposed to the virus and will contract AIDS in the future. But the likelihood is that the numbers are extraordinarily small," says Hirsch, one of the nation's leading AIDS researchers.

"The incubation period seems to be so long that undergraduates are not likely to manifest the disease until after college. This makes AIDS seem rather remote from the undergraduate experience--and therefore less frightening," says David Herlihy, master of Mather House.

Herlihy, a medieval history professor who annually teaches a course on the bubonic plague, says he has not received any room change requests specifically related to AIDS. The Mather House master says he has no policy regarding AIDS except the "general policy that we try to make groups congenial."

At other local universities--including Tufts, Northeastern, Boston University, and UMass at Boston--special task forces are currently studying guidelines which the American College Health Association issued in December.

Tufts University provost Sol Gittelman told the Boston Globe recently that the Medford-based school plans to develop a policy tailored to the university's needs. "We're walking carefully through this thing, trying to define the responsibility of the institution," he said.

Gittelman also told the Boston newspaper that every school needs to develop a policy concerning AIDS. "We have to address the issue and be prepared because we don't know where its going. Everybody should be sitting down and thinking how we're going to handle it," he said.

But David Stockton, health service director at UMass-Boston, says it would not be prudent to develop and put into effect specific policies. At the eastern end of Cambridge, MIT spokesmen say the university deals with outbreaks of AIDS on an ad hoc basis.

Harvard's Kathleen Kniepmann, a health educator at UHS, says she emphasizes sound information and prevention. Kniepmann says UHS offers literature on AIDS and can counsel students through its mental health services, like CONTACT, which offers peer advice on sexuality to Harvard students.

Combatting Stereotypes

Although lesbians are in the lowest risk group for contracting AIDS, Lorelee Stewart of GLSA says many have been supportive of gay men on the AIDS issue.

"At Harvard, lesbians realize that gay men are an easy group to single out. I don't know that lesbians and gays have a lot in common. But in terms of being political outsiders, they do," says senior Ann Pellegrini.

Stewart attributes much of the hype over AIDS to homophobia. "Anti-gay feelings which previously could not be articulated are now being expressed in the name of health. Some people use AIDS to claim pseudo-scientific justification for their bigotry," Jake Stevens says.

"For people who are already homophobic, AIDS has definitely increased tension and hostility [between gay people and heterosexuals on campus]," says Suzanne Litke. "AIDS has become a focal point."

But one junior, who wished to remain anonymous, says there is a potential for increased tension due to AIDS "if gay and straight people mixed more at Harvard."

"At Harvard, there's this veneer of social diversity which we think we should believe in," Litke concludes. "Therefore, it's difficult to judge whether homophobia has increased or not."