AIDS Athens diagnosed more University students as HIV-positive last year than ever before.

The group serves more than 20 student “clients” on a regular basis, and the largest demographic to see an increase was in the “under-25” range.

But HIV is hardly a part of daily life for this demographic on campus.

Bus cards may catch a few eyes. Posters in dorms inform a handful of freshman. Student groups talk about it once a year at Tate Plaza. Students overall lack an awareness of HIV — still the most deadly sexually-transmitted infection — say Health Center officials.

“It seems like there’s more of a stigma around HIV again. No one talks about it,” said Betsy Sanford, the Health Center’s HIV tester and counselor. “The longer an illness is around, the number we are. It’s coming up close to 30 years for HIV, so it’s not so shocking anymore. A fair amount of students out there need to be more informed about it.”

AIDS Athens tested approximately 800 people in Athens-Clarke County last year. Around 200 were tested at University events, and almost 400 were between ages 18 and 24.

“This is the most we’ve seen in that age group,” said Justine Sher, an AIDS Athens case manager and the outreach prevention coordinator. “And it’s definitely increasing.”

HIV wasn’t talked about much on campus — at least until one student claimed it would become a “public health threat” to University students in December.

A sticky situation

A University student sent an e-mail to 12 University officials on Dec. 18 announcing a “public health threat to the UGA Athens campus.” The male student asked officials — including chancellor Erroll Davis, president Michael Adams, provost Jere Morehead, student ombudsperson Shay Little and Student Government Association president Katie Barlow — to “support appropriate sanctions in this case to prevent an HIV outbreak among UGA student body.”

The student revealed he contracted HIV from another student, who had been sleeping with other students and lying about his HIV-positive status.

The main administrator to handle the e-mail was Alan Campbell, associate dean for student affairs, who worked with the student previously. The student wrote in the December e-mail he was “upset that … [Campbell] may be handling this situation poorly through [a] failure to protect other students in the University Community.” He accused Campbell of making “an error in judgment by threatening [the student] with silence, indicating [he] had no right to inform people to get tested who had been lied to.”

The letter continued, asking Campbell, “At this point being aware that his behavior is a danger to the University community, would it not be negligent on your part to not investigate this matter?”

Although the student agreed to be interviewed by The Red & Black, he stopped further communication before an interview was scheduled. Campbell gave the University’s side of the story.

“I’m on the behavioral intervention team, and the University community never knows or hears about these situations. We have a discrete way of dealing with it,” he said. “We evaluate the person making a complaint or call, the relationship to the other person in the situation and the caller’s agenda. Then we try to determine an appropriate institutional response.”

Campbell declined to talk about specifics of the HIV case but indicated the complaint wasn’t addressed as a University-wide problem but rather as a personal conflict.

“I try to suggest the best means to the situation, and often the resources go beyond my office,” he said. “I told the student if there is criminal conduct, it should be reported to police. If there is a violation of the code of conduct, it should be reported to judicial programs. There are other resources, too — counseling, the Health Center and more.”

Difficulty proving intent

University Police Chief Jimmy Williamson also declined to comment about the case in particular, but indicated many administrators have been helping the students involved.

“It’s very difficult for us to deal with this as administrators,” he said. “We urge people — if you feel victimized, go to any authority. Don’t initiate your own methods of holding someone accountable. There should be no vigilante justice here.”

As with any sexual complaints, the police become cautious when issues of consent come into question.

“Any time someone comes forward, we take it as a credible complaint and then talk to the other parties and perhaps subpoena records to substantiate facts,” Williamson said, adding similar situations have rarely occurred in the past. “It becomes very difficult to prove intent. We might not be able to have the facts to come to some kind of closure or find culpability.”

Campbell also recognized the difficulty in addressing sexual or personal complaints among students, especially “he said-she said” situations.

“The better the quality of information I get from students, the higher quality of response I can give and the better I can gauge the level and nature of the concern,” he said. “I never want to overreact, but I never want to underreact, so I often act on the side of student safety.”

When dealing with sensitive health information, Campbell and Williamson must also weigh the importance of involving outside health officials and parents.

“Many students have this consumerist attitude. They go to class and that’s all they want,” Campbell said. “But my job is to address the needs in the community — make students feel more comfortable, safe, healthy and receive care if they need any. At the end of the day, I want the student to be alive, but sometimes they see me as the bad guy.”

Dealing with legal concerns

For newly-diagnosed HIV patients, legal protection could become a looming concern.

It is a felony to engage in sexual intercourse or share a needle without disclosing an HIV-positive status. Though the law varies according to state, in Georgia it doesn’t matter if the sex was protected.

“In fact, whether or not the partner became infected is irrelevant,” Sher said. “You had a sexual action and didn’t tell the person, and it is against the law.”

Sher, who indicated AIDS Athens is also working with the students involved in the e-mail to University administrators, occasionally helps clients who want to take further action and consider pressing criminal charges.

“We get a lot of calls saying, ‘I know my neighbor is HIV-positive and having sex with my cousin and he hasn’t told her. I want you guys to take action,’ but we can’t,” she said. “A third party cannot press charges or get involved, and it’s actually against the law to give names in that situation.”

When a client does come forward, however, Sher and other case managers offer to discuss options — such as filing a “reckless conduct with HIV” charge with ACC police.

“But then what happens is police have to determine if the person they charged did in fact know their HIV status, and it becomes complicated,” she said. “You need solid information to present, and even then it can become ‘he said-she said’ or a relationship issue. Maybe he broke up with her and now she’s mad and retaliating.”

Clients entering new relationships may bring the partner to the AIDS Athens office during case management meetings to document the partner was notified of the HIV-positive status.

“I have dealt with cases like these in Athens where I worked with the person to file charges and help advocate for themselves, work through the system and meet with detectives,” Sher said. “But then they must understand what will happen — when pressing charges, the media can get involved and your status in the community changes.”

At this point, most clients drop the charges.

“This is why they don’t pursue it,” she said. “They don’t want to risk others knowing who they are.”

Culture of HIV on campus

The University’s Health Promotion Department offers anonymous HIV testing through a rapid oral swab that processes in 20 minutes. Students first meet with Sanford to talk about their situation, so she can determine whether they fall in the right time frame for an accurate test. If the rapid swab gives a positive reading, blood is drawn and sent to a lab for a final result. About 300 students per year pay the $35 test fee to ease their minds — and Sanford sees a wide range of reactions.

“I get them connected with people and resources they may need. It’s very individual and different,” she said. “With positive results, many students enter a shock stage. I give written information to lead them to the next step and then stay in contact for a while to follow up.”

Katy Janousek, the Health Center’s sexual health promotions director, works to inform students about all sexually transmitted infections on campus.

“For the college-age population, the most common STIs are chlamydia, HPV and herpes. Generally we try to focus our awareness efforts on STIs that affect a larger portion of the population, but that doesn’t take away from the severity of HIV,” she said. “While no viral STIs have cures, HIV is the most deadly.”

Janousek noted the need for more student awareness.

“This age group has not been affected as greatly as past generations,” she said. “When HIV first was discovered and making headlines, most college-age students who are now in school weren’t even born yet. In the early ’90s many people were suffering and dying from AIDS. As awareness and prevention methods increased, we did see fewer cases of HIV. Also, as treatment improved, this generation was rarely — if ever — exposed to people in their personal lives affected by AIDS.”

Although Janousek and Sanford create prevention information packets for residence halls each fall, they still work to increase awareness about the testing services on campus.

“People don’t pay attention to a service unless they need it and start looking around,” Sanford said. “They’re not aware unless it affects them directly.”

When students do seek her out, Sanford works hard to stay positive.

“It’s important for students to know that HIV is so very preventable. I often tell them there’s not a lot of good things I can say about HIV, but if you follow the guidelines, you will be OK,” she said. “Testing reinforces being safe. Once you get a negative result, you can be protective of it.”