TELLURIDE – Seventeen years ago, those founding organizers of the Telluride AIDS Benefit, which has over the years raised more than $1.5 million for organizations involved with the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, believed it was only a matter of time before an effective vaccine became available, infection rates dropped and decent medical care was available for everyone with HIV/AIDS. 

This year, the HIV infection rate is up 12 percent in Colorado, according to the Western Colorado AIDS Project; left untreated, HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, leads to Acquired Immune Deficiency syndrome, better known as AIDS.

There’s more. HIV infection rates have not gone down, says TAB Boardmember Ron Gilmer, former member of the HIV/AIDS Care and Prevention Coalition, formerly known as the Governor’s Council on AIDS.

The mounting HIV infection rates are attributed to a combination of several factors: A downturn in fear of infection, thanks to the availability (although hardly widespread) of effective medications; an eight-year spate of abstinence-only education in schools; children’s mounting lack of self esteem; funding cuts in programs related to education and epidemic research; and a loss of public focus on – and dwindling sense of urgency – related to this ultimately fatal disease. 

For a disease that is 100 percent preventable, the rise in infection rates is alarming. 

“Obviously we are doing something wrong,” said Gilmer. “Every year, we try to find beneficiaries or people who are doing the work in a different way, to see if we can get these rates to drop.”

But, he goes on, “the problem is that we need to alter male sexual behavior, which is almost impossible to do.”

Care and support programs for HIV/AIDS patients everywhere face funding cuts. In Colorado, 54 common HIV medications are being cut from the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) formulary, effective April 1 of this year. Insurance companies are reevaluating the coverage they offer for clients with HIV/AIDS.  In 2008, the World Health Organization reported that approximately 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV; that year, two million died from AIDS, and 2,700,000 were newly infected.

“Care is going be a nightmare in coming years,” predicts Gilmer, in a recession economy “where a lot of the successful programs, and some that were just beginning, have been cut. 

“A bad economy and AIDS just don’t mix,” he said.

Many new victims are young. “If young people don’t believe they are worth anything, they don’t feel that they have the right to say, ‘use a condom,’” observes Karen Ringen, TAB boardmember and former executive director of the Governor’s Council on AIDS. To remedy that problem, she suggests: “What you have to do with teenagers today is first, make sure that they have the facts straight.

“There are still many teenagers who believe that if they are having” oral or anal sex, “they are a virgin, and if they are a virgin, they can’t get HIV.

“If that is your definition, if you are having sex without a condom,” she says, get over it. “That’s a very good way to get infected. 

“It’s a scandal that we don’t give them more and better sex education,” she says, of America’s children.

Then, too, there’s the perception that, thanks to existing medications, kids “see people living with HIV who look healthy,” further minimizing fear of infection.

Living with HIV “is not just, ‘Hey, take a pill,’” emphasizes Ringen, but rather, being HIV-positive “changes everything,” from the possibility that “the drugs might not work” to the possibility that “you might not be able to afford them. 

“Everything changes when you are infected.”

The Telluride AIDS Benefit now supports six innovative beneficiaries, in the region and internationally, providing HIV and AIDS education and support for those already infected. TAB, with no religious or governmental affiliations or reporting structures, is able to support organizations lacking the means and/or infrastructure to go after funding from larger organizations. TAB’s Board of Directors requires little in the way of updates or detailed reporting, freeing up staff to focus on what Gilmer calls “on-the-ground” work. The largely volunteer organization utilizes the talents of hundreds of people, many of whom simply show up when it’s time to do the job they have done for years – like Roby Peabody, the auction runner, who shows up before the shows, memorizes the auction lists and makes sure everything flows, and then he takes off, not asking for tickets, or for pay, and can’t even remember how long he’s been doing it.  

“Occasional acts of unconditional giving” is how longtime TAB staffer/production manager Peter Garber sums it up. “All these moving parts, and things get a little crazy, and then someone does something very kind, without thinking about what they will receive in return. 

“That is why I do this,” says Garber, adding that “every year is the best year, the hardest year and the most successful year, with all of these people coming together to do their part. 

“And it works.” 

Or, as TAB Executive Director Stash Wislocki sums it up: “Just copy the phone book for the thank you list. Everyone does something for TAB.”