LIKE MANY people, I am interested in reviewing the past year's events. As an AIDS sufferer, I'm keenly aware of developments related to the disease in 1994. Unfortunately, we are bidding adieu to a year when no AIDS cure was discovered.
However, out of all bad things some good does come. This disease has forced many people to demonstrate uncommon courage. Also, it has forced our society to examine some things that had been unthinkable -- needle-exchange programs and drug decriminalization. So, here's my list of people and events that have helped in the fight against the spread of AIDS and/or to raise the public's awareness of the disease in 1994:
* In September, Ethel Livingston, of Baltimore County, joined a group of AIDS activists who protested the "hemophiliac holocaust" at the National Academy of Sciences. They were outraged that their family members had been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, which causes AIDS, through bad blood in the nation's blood supply. Of Ms. Livingston's three hemophiliac sons, two have AIDS and one has died of it. The disease has also claimed her brother and her youngest son's wife.
* Drew Leder, a Loyola College philosophy professor, wrote a gripping article, which was published in the Washington Post on May 31, about the proposed elimination of federal college grants for prison inmates. College courses provide the only AIDS-prevention information that many inmates receive. Our nation's prisons are filled with HIV-infected inmates who know little about preventing the spread of the disease. Congress voted to cut the grants.
* Pedro Zamora -- who helped teach other young people about AIDS through his role on MTV's "The Real World" -- died at 22 of an AIDS-related neurological disorder in November. Zamora, a native Cuban who came here as a child on the Mariel boat-lift, learned he was HIV-positive at age 17. After the diagnosis, he dedicated himself to teaching young people about the disease. President Clinton, who called Zamora after he was hospitalized, said the young man "taught us all that AIDS is a disease with a human face." Mr. Zamora's family has established the Pedro Zamora Memorial Fund at the AIDS Action Foundation, 1875 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20009.
* Many people mourned the August death of John T. Stuban at age 38. He moved from New York City in1987 and founded ACT UP Baltimore. He helped to change the way AIDS activists address the establishment in Baltimore. ACT UP Baltimore, one link in a nationwide network of such groups, uses civil disobedience to prod the government to do more in the fight against AIDS. We will miss his aggressive style and his sense of social justice.
* Elizabeth Glaser, who used her celebrated status to push for more funding for pediatric AIDS research, lost her battle with AIDS two weeks ago at the age of 47. Mrs. Glaser contracted the disease through a blood transfusion and then passed it to her daughter through breast milk. Her daughter, Ariel, died at age 10 of the disease. She also passed the virus on to her second child, a son, who has no symptoms of the disease. Mrs. Glaser publicized her family's plight at the risk of being shunned in Hollywood, where before the revelation she was best known as being the wife of actor Paul Michael Glaser (of "Starsky and Hutch" fame). Most remember her from her poignant speech at the Democratic National Convention. She helped raise millions for the care and treatment of young AIDS victims.
Among the major AIDS-related events and other changes that took place in 1994:
* Baltimore's City-Wide Coalition has opened the dialogue on drug decriminalization that Mayor Kurt Schmoke called for six years ago. The group wants city residents to demand that the Baltimore City Council adopt a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to establish an independent commission to oversee the distribution of now illegal drugs through health clinics for a nominal fee. One of the group's goals is to reduce the spread of AIDS by distributing clean needles through the clinics.
* In 1994, after years of debate, Baltimore's needle-exchange program began. Under the program, addicts receive free, clean needles for each dirty one they turn in. I pray that it will do what is intended -- slow the rate of infection from shared, dirty syringes. A recent study showed that on the East Coast AIDS is typically transferred through drug use.
* A tip of the hat to the numerous researchers who work tirelessly to find a cure for the disease and/or drugs that halt its most devastating effects. In 1993, 18 drug therapies were used in the fight against AIDS. In 1994, six more AIDS drugs were introduced. A new drug, d4T (ZERIT) was added in October; it is for people who cannot tolerate some other AIDS drugs.
* At the 10th international conference on AIDS, held in Japan, immunologist William E. Paul, director of the U.S. Office of AIDS Research, said there's no cure for AIDS on the horizon, but there was a positive sign: There are some long-term HIV-positive survivors who show no signs of the disease.
Postscript: Last month in this space I reported on a friend, Reginald C., who was being treated for AIDS-related illnesses at Bon Secours Hospital. I am happy to report that Reginald is out of the hospital and off drugs. Also, he is no longer homeless. I believe in miracles at Christmas.
H. B. Johnson Jr., a Baltimore playwright and poet, writes occasionally about living with AIDS.