DR. DAVID OSTROW
Dr. David Ostrow, then at Howard Brown Health Center, had just finished ground-breaking work in helping to develop the hepatitis B vaccine when a new, even more insidious illness began to make itself known. He and doctors like him were on the frontlines as more and more gay men began coming down with more and more rare infections and immune problems. Today, he is the developer and principal investigator of the longtime Multi-Center AIDS Cohort or ( MAC ) study. He is Chief of the Addiction Medicine Program at Loyola University Medical School and a professor in psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences.
What are the most significant changes of the last 20 years?
"On the medical side, the development of really potent drugs to treat the infections has transformed this from a death sentence to a chronic, manageable disease.
"Society, in general, has gotten a lot more complacent about AIDS," he said. "They think the battle is over. They think the battle now is getting the drugs to developing nations.
"Our prevention radar is down, and we can have another outbreak in other subgroups in the U.S.," particularly among young gay men of color, "who have never shared in the prevention success to the extent white gay men did. Heterosexual women are bearing the brunt, and that's predominately African-American women."
What hasn't changed?
"The emphasis on the party scene in the gay community seems to have survived and flourished, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's important to have rituals and enjoyment," he said. But, he noted, people "do things under the influence you wouldn't ordinarily do. ... Gays and lesbians involved in that scene are more vulnerable to risky behavior. I'm surprised by the number of gay community leaders and activists who are willing to buy into the barebacking phenomenon without questioning it."
Where will we be in 20 years? "The next 20 years we're going to have new classes of drugs that might even be better. ... We might see breakthroughs in medications and the health care delivery system."
There will be "more acceptance of HIV/AIDS as normal."
"I'm afraid we're going to see new resistant strains. That will set us back a long way.
"Chicago has always been kind of like the Midwest and not had the same extremes."
The city wasn't as hard-hit but was slower to respond, he said.
"Now we have many of the same problems. It's more of an even playing field. ... The department of health has a lot more resources in prevention. There wasn't the fear element here as elsewhere. It was a more slow-emerging epidemic."
ALLEN SCHUH
For attorney Allen Schuh, the Windy City Times' AIDS at 20 series hit close to home for many reasons, not least among them that his partner of 13 years, Paul Anderson, was one of the Chicagoans pictured as a casualty of the epidemic.
Anderson, a former commodities dealer, was already a well-known philanthropist when he founded The Stonewall Awards in 1991, shortly before he died of an AIDS-related illness.
In contacting WCT through a friend, Schuh said he wanted to note how the "legacy of the people who have died of AIDS continues to impact the community in positive ways."
Each year since '91, the Anderson Prize Foundation has distributed $100,000 to recipients who are anonymously nominated for their work in the GLBT community. Recipients are chosen regardless of their sexual orientation, and 38 in all have been selected since 1991, taking home nearly $1 million in prize money.
"It was significant that there were quite a few Chicago winners," Schuh said. Those winners include Thom Dombkowski, Vernita Gray, Earnest Hite and Al Wardell.
In talking of Dombkowski, Schuh spoke of his founding of Chicago House and his work with People With AIDS while he worked as an attorney with the corporation council's office.
"He had four to five PWAs living in his house," Schuh said. "He cooked for them; he was just a hero."
In past years, four winners received $25,000 each, but for 2001, two winners each received $50, 000. That was done to "equalize the impact," Schuh said.
The genesis for the Stonewall Awards was a conversation Schuh and Anderson had over breakfast one morning in 1990, when Anderson began talking about the MacArthur Foundation and its genius grants. Winners are chosen by anonymous nominators who submit names.
"Paul was intrigued by that idea and started one for the GLBT community," Schuh said. "It was a terrific, terrific device. When people get this ( notification ) letter, they're stunned. The money is theirs," not their organization's.
The non-profit Anderson Prize Foundation is Chicago-based and includes a committee that chooses each year's winners. Schuh, who splits his time between Chicago and San Francisco, is president of the Foundation.
The first year's winners were Dombkowski, Urvashi Vaid, who was then executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and Martin Delaney, executive director of Project Inform.
Delaney, a best friend of Schuh and Anderson, was the inspiration for the Awards.
"He made us realize that there were real heroes in our community ... paying enormous, personal sacrifices," Schuh said of Delaney.
"We saw firsthand what happened to him as a result of his work," with AIDS. Delaney, a Chicago native, became a national spokesperson for AIDS through his work with Project Inform, a pioneering clearinghouse of information for people with HIV in San Francisco. Professionally, he ran a computer consulting business out of his home, serving large clients such as banks and other corporations. After appearing on the national TV show Nightline to talk about AIDS, he lost over 70% of his clients, Schuh said.
When Anderson was diagnosed in 1987, he and Schuh set up a second home in San Francisco, where there were more treatment options than in Chicago, where Schuh described the medical situation as "chaotic."
The awards were "Paul's pet project when he was alive," and he left enough money to the Foundation for them to continue for at least the rest of this decade. "It can go on forever," he said. "The work wil go on."
Schuh hopes the Foundation will eventually become a permanent fixture in the community that isn't associated with Anderson. "This wasn't being done then for gays and lesbians," he said. "A lot of that's changed."
He noted that Anderson gave not only to gay causes, but to a variety of charities and organizations. He was a major donor to his alma mater, Augustana College, and to the Augustana Center, a home for the developmentally disabled.
"It's really important for gays and lesbians who are making significant contributions in straight communities to make ourselves known. It's something that's important. Paul led the way in doing that."
Looking back on what Anderson was able to accomplish both before and after he died, Schuh pointed to the ways that AIDS has brought different groups of people together. "We realize how much we can learn from each other," he said.
Shortly after his talk with WCT, Schuh was set to host the two founders of Mothers Against Jesse ( Helms ) in Congress at his home as they visited San Franscisco on a national tour. The founders, Heloise and Patsy, are two widows in their 70s who both lost sons to AIDS and were both horrified by the lack of compassion shown by Helms to the plight of the dying. They are on tour promoting their book, Keep Singing.
"The horror of the epidemic has changed my life and enriched it far beyond my dreams," he said. "I was a non-boat rocker," before AIDS, but "look at the impact on people."
