Russia’s Killer Prudes

Russians do care — about emissions, radiation, and poisonous chemicals, according to a recent survey of the Public Opinion Foundation, a Russian polling institute. But in their list of top public concerns, one issue is glaringly underrepresented: HIV/AIDS. "It is officially prohibited to talk about HIV. Neither people nor specialists nor politicians are ready," says ...

Russians do care -- about emissions, radiation, and poisonous chemicals, according to a recent survey of the Public Opinion Foundation, a Russian polling institute. But in their list of top public concerns, one issue is glaringly underrepresented: HIV/AIDS.

Russians do care — about emissions, radiation, and poisonous chemicals, according to a recent survey of the Public Opinion Foundation, a Russian polling institute. But in their list of top public concerns, one issue is glaringly underrepresented: HIV/AIDS.

"It is officially prohibited to talk about HIV. Neither people nor specialists nor politicians are ready," says Elena Tvorogova, president of the Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center in Irkutsk. She says breaking the HIV taboo would mean addressing a long list of traditional no-no’s, from prostitution to homosexuality. Tatiana Evlampieva, a young Red Cross worker who has started sexual education classes for adults and teens, agrees: "These parents cannot take any words beyond ‘bodily fluids,’ and you expect them to be comfortable talking about heroin addiction and intravenous infection, condoms, or sex?" So neighbors lie about their HIV-infected kids. Irkutsk’s blood transfusion center declines donations from anyone under 30. And doctors are silent. Although the parents of Zhenia Khuleshov, a 25-year-old aids patient, come to visit their son in the Irkutsk hospital, they believe he is suffering from encephalitis.

This year’s "Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic 2002," published by the United Nations, reveals the cost of these lingering taboos: Infection rates are increasing faster in Russia than anywhere else in the world. The United Nations estimates that nearly a million Russians carry the virus, and the figure could increase fivefold by 2005.

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