Haiti: The AIDS Stigma
Cooley, Martha
AIDS. Everybody has heard of it, everybody is scared of it, and nobody knows just what it is. Dubbed "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome," AIDS has already claimed hundreds of lives, with...
...only one month later did the Daily News see fit to print his refutation...
...As a consequence, U.S...
...They are upset not only by the loss of desperately needed income, but by the political ramifications of AIDS' presence among Haitians at home and abroad...
...authorities have made strenuous efforts to curtail the flow of Haitian refugees to the north...
...During the past two years, both the Haitian and U.S...
...That wasn't at all what I said...
...No scientific corroboration was offered by the Globe...
...And their secrecy isn't unique to Haitiit's the way scientists work...
...Dubbed "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome," AIDS has already claimed hundreds of lives, with its incidence reportedly accelerating at an alarming rate...
...Haiti is poor and black and small...
...The press hasn't dealt fairly with Haiti...
...scientific groups have since stated that no data exists to support the notion...
...In another glaring piece of sensationalism, the Boston Globe (April 29, 1983) ran the headline "Researcher Links AIDS, Swine Fever," citing a Harvard School of Public Health researcher who conjectured that AIDS "may have originated with one Haitian homosexual who ate infected pork" and then spread the disease to vacationing American homosexuals in Haiti...
...Jeffrey Viera of Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, as drawing a potential voodoo-AIDS link...
...It makes us look feeble...
...Desgranges...
...The Haitians are doing an excellent job," he confirms, "and they want to devote their time to working, not talking...
...doctors have often ended up as spokespersons for the Haitians, a situation that disturbs Dr...
...press coverage of the Haitian connection...
...Desgranges also worries about discrimination against Haitians seeking work, as well as prejudice against Haitian school children...
...One inveighed strongly against the American press: "They come in here with big cameras and already I'm repulsed...
...We've refused to give out any information thus far...
...According to Dr...
...The very use of such a sobriquet is an eloquent sign of the American public's need to ostracize victims of this frightening illness...
...They only want to talk to American doctors, it seems...
...The group's members, who are among Haiti's most prestigious physicians, insisted on written questions before they would grant a brief interview recently...
...Haitians were prematurely designated a 'high-risk factor'," says Desgranges...
...Jean-Claude Desgranges, a Haitian physician affiliated with Downstate...
...People are losing their jobs...
...Distortion of physicians' statements stoked the fires: The New York Daily News cited one American researcher, Dr...
...Slapping his palms with his fingers in a characteristic Haitian gesture of vexation and resignation, he added, "Because the United States is rich, white and big, it thinks it can make a bouc emissaire-a scapegoat--of us...
...Warren Johnson of Cornell's College of Medicine, who attended a symposium on AIDS in Haiti sponsored by the Haitian Medical Association, feels similarly about the issue of caution...
...We know you don't want us coming to your country any more...
...A young man in the Champs-de-Mars, the capital's central park, put it succinctly: "You Americans think we're stupid, don't you...
...indeed, two U.S...
...One American doctor studying AIDS at Atlanta's Center for Disease Control (CDC) feels that the annoyance of his Haitian counterparts is understandable: "They're struggling just like we are...
...dance, music and occasional animal sacrifice-was invoked by the media as an explanation for AIDS' appearance in the Haitian community...
...The New York Times has never sought out Haitians for their point of view...
...In much of the American press, bizarre speculation about the "Haitian AIDS connection" has fostered a climate of suspicion which Haitians have had trouble dispelling...
...Sept/Oct 1983 47update * update update * update and have largely opted to respond with silence or extreme reticence out of fear of being misquoted...
...The study uses two groups--a random sample of about 150 Haitians and a control group of Haitian AIDS victims and their families-living under similar socioeconomic conditions...
...Desgranges insists...
...When asked why tourism has declined, Haitians cluck their tongues and murmur "Quatre-H" in ironic tones...
...She has recently returned from a visit to Haiti...
...They have a reason to be silent...
...that no study can be successfully undertaken without the participation of Haitian doctors...
...Viera sent a letter to the Daily News denying he had ever made such a suggestion...
...The language barrier makes it impossible...
...In Miami they're trying to do one without us...
...He claims that CDC is encouraging collaboration with Haiti and that there is mutual respect between medical researchers in both countries...
...A Haitian girl I know of was recently fired from her job as a maid because her employer thought she might have AIDS--and she was working for an American doctor...
...What did they report...
...Desg ranges has harsh words for U.S...
...Already in the political limelight because of the huge influx of "boat people" in recent years and the subsequent controversy over their legal status in the United States, Haitians now find themselves the object of further unwanted attention as possible purveyors of a deadly new plague...
...Dr...
...They try to speak French to Haitians, but most of us understand only Creole...
...A Small, Black Scapegoat Like most experts inside Haiti, the AIDS Research Group in Portau-Prince is far more reticent than Dr...
...There have been no serious epidemiological studies in any of the Haitian communities of the diaspora...
...Articulate and angry, Dr...
...Pointing fingers doesn't strengthen anybody's position...
...We assume that anything we say will be misquoted or misinterpreted by the press...
...For Haitians, both in the United States and at home, the implications of being pigeonholed in this way have been particularly devastating...
...heroin) users, hemophiliacs andlast but not least in notoriety-Haitians...
...Desgranges claims that sensationalism and racism have severely impacted Haitians in the United States...
...Dr...
...Desgranges is presently involved in an epidemiological/immunological case control study in New York's Haitian community...
...It's a real problem...
...the AIDS scare will put an extra damper on the hopes of emigres...
...Desgranges, Haitians in the United States are already suffering the ill effects of being maligned...
...Haitians with AIDS represent only about 2.5% of the entire victim population in this 48 country...
...That I was asking for help...
...If our reputation is maligned, what can we do...
...It won't work...
...And two weeks ago, I gave an interview to the Daily News, telling them about what we're doing here and in Haiti...
...Racist Overtones Few Haitian researchers have been willing to break this silence...
...Initially, even voodoo-the traditional Haitian religion involving Martha Cooley is a free-lance writer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
...Haitian doctors are angry at such cavalier handling of the topic, A worker erects a new barricade at Miami's Krome Avenue Detention Center in 1981...
...Sue the United States...
...This 4-H thing is just one more way to keep us out...
...People have jumped to conclusions about the Haitians...
...Most AIDS victims fall into one of the syndrome's alleged "high-risk groups": homosexuals, intravenous drug (e.g...
...Kids are refusing to sit next to Haitian students, even in kindergarten...
...Dr...
...In the busy streets of Port-auPrince, few foreigners are in evidence...
...AIDS' popular nickname, "the 4-H disease," derives from these four groups...
Vol. 17 • September 1983 • No. 5
