c. 2004 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is a consultant to humanitarian organizations and the author of the forthcoming book “The Skeptics Guide to Dealing With the AIDS Pandemic.”)

(UNDATED) When thousands of AIDS experts gather in Bangkok, Thailand, next week (July 11-16) for the XV International AIDS Conference, they will share new discoveries, revise predictions and continue debates on various courses of action. They will consider economic impacts and political pressures, as well as social issues and cultural barriers.

And no matter what their expertise, they will share the same concern: Despite the fact that the world is in the throes of the worst health disaster ever known, the average person knows little about it and cares even less.

According to statistics released Tuesday (July 6) by UNAIDS, the disease has taken a devastating worldwide toll since it was first identified in 1981. There have been 20 million deaths, as many as 38 million additional people infected with HIV, and an estimated 14 million orphaned children _ yet we remain a country largely in denial.

The reasons for this are both obvious and painfully subconscious.

Most obvious is the enormity of the problem. Unless you have actually visited a country where the sale of coffins is the fastest-growing industry, it is hard to understand how devastating such numbers can be. With more than 3 million people dying every year from AIDS, the impact has been compared to 20 fully loaded 747s crashing every single day. But even such comparisons seem incomprehensible.

To the American population, the worst seems to be over. The early devastation of AIDS seems to have given way to a more optimistic response. While researching a book on AIDS, one of the responses I most often received when I asked about knowledge of the virus was “Magic Johnson.” Many people see the former basketball star as emblematic of the shocking first reaction to AIDS in this country and his continuing apparent good health as evidence that things aren’t so bad after all.

But after the obvious, we must look at what many are calling us to consider as a matter of conscience. AIDS is now present in every country in the world, but 70 percent of those infected live in sub-Saharan Africa. Whether because of overt racism or simply unwillingness to consider the largely poor population of the region as important to the interests of the United States, we have regularly ignored wars, famines and health crises in that region. “What does it really have to do with us?” one man asked me with bold candor as I interviewed him about his views on the global AIDS pandemic.

And then there is the morality issue. Scratch beneath the surface and many people will admit that they believe AIDS is largely due to a person’s poor choices regarding sexual practices, partners or drug usage.

The facts that many monogamous, married women are infected by their husbands and many children are HIV-positive because they had the misfortune of being born to a mother who carried the virus are viewed as exceptions. Yet these “exceptions” now number millions of people each year.

And then there are the thousands (or millions _ no one knows for sure) of poor Chinese who gave blood in order to have enough money to feed their families and are now infected, along with the children who play in the city dumps where hospitals discarded tainted syringes. Not to mention the doctors and nurses infected during operations and those who received routine treatment in hospitals before blood supplies were tested.

The world of those infected with HIV/AIDS does not line up as innocents and guilty no matter how puritanical a measure is used. Yet most charities _ even those with a largely churchgoing base _ admit that raising money to fight AIDS is one of their toughest challenges. Some report getting letters from donors who think supporting such a cause is not a good use of funds.

And perhaps that’s where we should be talking about morality. Many of us have wondered how our parents or grandparents were able to stand by while the Holocaust occurred. Some of us have wondered why we did so little for the Bosnians or Rwandans when they were being systematically slaughtered. Perhaps ignorance could still be cited in these circumstances.

But the AIDS pandemic has occurred during a time when almost every American has access to the Internet. Even if our newspapers don’t cover an issue, we routinely find ways to stay on top of hometown news, distant weather reports and international sports scores. Yet dozens of Web sites about AIDS receive relatively few “hits.”

In a time when religious and political leaders seem polarized on many fronts, it is time for them to unite in calling every one of us to join the war on AIDS. It starts with educating ourselves about the facts and ridding ourselves of prejudices and myths. It includes moving out of our comfortable denial and confronting the hard truth.

And if nothing else, it means that we must understand that unless we act decisively, we are leaving our children with a moral deficit so vast that they will spend much of their lifetime dealing with not only the political, economic and cultural consequences, but also the shame of what the previous generation so blatantly chose to ignore.

KRE/MO END BOURKE