By snoadmin
The post board beside professor Thomas Alex Washington’s door is covered in flyers for HIV/AIDS clinics and other help organizations. A small bag of condoms hangs near the door as a subtle sign that one can be safe while having “fun.”
Washington is an associate professor of social work and a research fellow at Cal State Long Beach. He is also a gay man, with a family member who was diagnosed with HIV.
“Seeing so many people infected [within my community], and seeing so many families affected by HIV … that drives me,” Washington said.
Washington recently received the Gerald Ludd Award at the 2011 National American MSM Leadership Conference for his efforts in the field of HIV/AIDS.
The award is presented to those who have contributed at least seven years in HIV/AIDS prevention or other health disparities, targeting the community known as African American Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM).
When Washington was 20 years old and living in Tennessee, his cousin was diagnosed with HIV and died 10 years later.
Washington said that his family was sheltered from HIV/AIDS at the time. Having a family member diagnosed with HIV was very shocking and caused him to want to learn more about the disease and begin working and volunteering.
When Washington’s cousin was diagnosed, community youth had yet to receive a good education on HIV.
“It was alarming,” Washington said.
He described seeing AIDS victims in person and noticing apparent signs of rapid weight loss, deterioration of the skin and a pale and ashy complexion.
Since then, he has volunteered with various organizations like “Friends for Life,” located in Memphis, Tenn., where many people in the community needed help because of the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.
“There were countless people being alienated from their family members because of the fear and the ignorance surrounding HIV,” Washington said. “They didn’t know how it was spread necessarily — whether they could catch it from sitting on the toilet seat after the person or drinking from the same cup.”
“Friends for Life” acted as a support group for those alienated individuals.
Through “Friends for Life,” Washington said he worked with people whose families had turned their backs on them. As a result, they had no one to assist them, especially when they were ill.
According to Washington, the hardest part “is gaining access to the minority community.” He said this is largely due to researchers who fit the tradition of entering a community, doing their research, publishing their work and never being seen again. As a result, some minority communities are skeptical of future attempts for research.
“[I have] to build the rapport to help them understand that I am not just about collecting data, that I really don’t care about the data,” Washington said.
Getting more people to promote the prevention of HIV/AIDS is one of the more gratifying things in Washington’s line of work. However, the experience of being invited to speak about HIV and having people listen and get involved is the most rewarding part, Washington said.
“If I can help prevent one new exposure, then I can see that my job — my work — can make a difference,” he said.
Currently, Washington is writing the final edit of a manuscript for a project that recently collected data on homo-negativity, HIV-related stigma, religiosity and the effect of those factors on HIV testing. He is reviewing and analyzing the data of the project for a colleague’s thesis.
Washington will also be facilitating an HIV/AIDS workshop in April.
“The workshop will give a presentation of the vaccine, the importance of the vaccine [and] dispel some of the myths about the vaccine,” Washington said.
Washington is also writing two grants geared toward allowing more HIV-related work.
When asked if he thought a cure was close at hand, he replied, “I can’t speak to how close we are to a cure.”
However, Washington said that there is ongoing vaccine research and that it is important for people to be knowledgeable and get involved.
“We cannot have the vaccine if we do not have people as part of the research studies and part of the answer,” he said. “We have made a lot of strides with HIV, we know that it’s preventable, we know the different ways to educate people on how to protect themselves.”
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