Vital Signs - July 2000

FRONTLINE

PREVENTION THROUGH PERSONALIZATION

by Cindie Geddes

Forrest Dunaetz stands on a chair and unfurls a list of names that reaches the floor and keeps on rolling--each of the names is a friend he has lost to AIDS in the past decade. He carries a plastic grocery bag filled with empty prescription bottles -- empty because they represent all the medications he has taken in the last three months. For over eleven years he has been living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. For ten of those years he has been telling his story to children, teens, and adults as a speaker for Frontline, a group of people living with the disease and using their lives as education in hopes of prevention.

"I was the second speaker for Frontline," Dunaetz explains. "The first speaker only did a few talks, unfortunately, before he got sick and passed away. They asked me to do it, and I thought: ‘Are you crazy? I'm not going to talk publicly about anything, let alone living with AIDS.’" But as he began to understand the disease better, he found himself wanting to do something to give back to the community, to help others make better choices so that they would not end up with the deadly virus.

Now Dunaetz, an attractive, healthy-looking man with a quick smile and a wicked sense of humor, is the program's Coordinator as well as a participant. "It's amazing," he says. "I've grown and learned along with the program." From its humble beginnings trying to book one or two talks a month at places like Wittenberg Juvenile Hall and a few youth groups, Frontline has grown to over 830 presentations last year (about 350 of those through Washoe County sex education classes) for over 20,000 people. Representatives speak throughout Nevada (they've appeared in all but four rural counties), as well as nearby and border California counties, for schools, church groups, drug and alcohol centers, anyone who asks. Frontline never says no.

The hefty schedule is shared by 16 dedicated speakers who receive a small stipend to talk about what it is like to live with AIDS, what it is like to take 40 to 50 pills a day, what the side effects are, what happens if they forget to take their medication. They are honest about the effects the virus has had on friends, family members, and jobs. They even talk of planning for their own deaths. And they show up even when they don't feel well.

"Measuring results is difficult," says Dunaetz, "but the best thing for me is when they write us letters or fill out the comment part of the evaluations, and I know they were listening and thinking about what we said." Students have come back and said they are going to make smarter choices, be more careful, even abstain. And it is communication and abstinence that Frontline emphasizes. They stress abstinence from sex, drugs, alcohol, and any kind of needle use, including tattoos and piercings. But for those who won't abstain, Frontline also talks about safety.

Yet Dunaetz would love to retire. He says it would be nice if a cure was found and he could stop doing prevention work, but that doesn't look likely, and he warns against being lulled by progress. A new medication does not mean a cure. And just because people are living longer, does not mean people don't continue to get sick and die. "People are catching it as fast as they always have," he says. "The way to stop spreading the disease is to make smarter choices."

For further information about Frontline, call Dunaetz at (775) 826-9644 or write to PO Box 70231, Reno 89570.