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WORLD AIDS DAY EVENTS
Our Heroes Photo Exhibit
MCC, 474 Ridge St., NW
Through Dec. 4
On Dec. 1 the exhibit will show at the HRC Building
1640 Rhode Island Ave., NW
www.wwc.org
Candlelight Vigil
Friday, Nov. 30, 5:30 p.m.
Dupont Circle
Candles and holders provided
www.wwc.org
NOVAM Concert for Hope
Friday, Nov. 30, 7:30 p.m.
Kenmore Middle School,
200 S. Carlin Springs Dr., Arlington, Va.
$25-$75
www.novam.org
703-533-5505 x 13 |
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HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: KATHERINE VOLIN COMMENTS
 
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AIDS Action and also serves as the executive director of the D.C. based national AIDS Action Council, a position she’s held since 2006. Her corporate background, combined with an masters in non-profit management, makes it no surprise that Haag’s idea for a national response to AIDS has a corporate spin.
“We need to take a more business-like approach that says if we want to reduce the number of new infections in the country and we want to set a strategy for that, then what’s the … most cost-effective strategy for that,” she says.
Despite their differing views on how to approach AIDS, Haag and Petrelis both sense that the nation is at, what Haag terms, a “juncture” with regard to a new national strategy for AIDS.
“On the domestic front right now, there is going to be a new administration, one way or another,” she says. “There is a national focus on health care reform and the state of health care in our country, and I think more and more people are looking at HIV/AIDS and trying to decide, what is it? In the early years, it was a crisis because it was a death sentence and nobody knew what caused it.”
Now, she says, it’s the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 25-34 and is no longer just a gay disease.
“Are we actually going to do something to solve it or are we just going to let it turn into a chronic problem?” she says. “I believe that there’s a lot of reason to believe that this is domestically something we can solve and we’ve got plenty of other problems in the country that have become chronic and there’s no need for AIDS to become one of them.
“The reality is there is a solution. We could drastically reduce the number of newly infected. I believe what we need to do is put hope back into the discussion.”
According to Petrelis, some of that hope might come in the form of a popular image: the red ribbon.
“Red ribbons are still an effective symbol. I used to be very dismissive of it, but I see it in the category of the pink triangle silence-equals-death thing from ACT UP. These are recognizable symbols that send messages.”
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