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AIDS Walk Miami Celebrates 25 Years of Activism
Christiana Lilly
christiana.lilly@gmail.com
This weekend marks a special anniversary in the fight against AIDS in Miami. For the last 25 years, AIDS Walk Miami has raised money for Care Resource, the oldest and largest HIV/AIDS community organization in the region. The walk on April 28 in Miami Beach is a celebration of a legacy of activism and community partnership. “We have a tradition of running HIV awareness and fundraising campaigns since the very beginning of the epidemic,” said Joe DePiro, marketing and public relations manager at Care Resource. Each year, the walk draws about 2,500 people from across the country and some even from outside the U.S. This year, the 3.1-mile walk starting at the Miami Beach Convention Center will include “flamingoes” that participants can pick up along the way to later use in a raffle. After the walk, there will be music by MTV Latin America, vendors and food at the Botanical Gardens. Most importantly, there will be rapid HIV testing sites where one can find out their status in a private setting in less than 30 minutes.
AIDS Walk Miami Festivities Walk Pre-Party
April 18 from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Haven Lounge, 1237 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. Dance to tunes from MTV DJ Mauricio Parra while sipping on free drinks. $20 voluntary donation to AIDS Walk Miami.
Kommona Paddle Race
April 20 at 8:30 a.m. at Purdy Docks, 18 Street and Purdy Avenue in Miami Beach. Jump on your paddle board for a race around part of the Venetian Causeway to benefit AIDS Walk Miami. Afterward, festivities at Beer and Burger Joint. Registration $40.
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Meet the Grand Marshal: Dr. Robert Gallo
With Miami and Fort Lauderdale ranking as the top two cities in the nation for new HIV infections per capital, the walk is especially important. With the AIDS epidemic seeming to be a problem from another generation as well as medical advancements making AIDS a lifelong illness rather than a death sentence, people have become lax. However, an AIDS patient could spend up to $600,000 in medical costs in their lifetime. “The infection rates here are high but there’s two things we can do to bring that down and alleviate it, and the first one is everybody needs to know their status — plain and simple,” DePiro said. “The second part of it is if you’re HIV-positive… get into treatment early. As soon as you find out, get into treatment.” For 30 years, Dr. Robert Gallo was the head of the Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology at the National Institutes of “It will bring the numbers down until a Health’s National Cancer Institute. He also founded the Global Virus Network and the Institute of Human Virology, vaccine is found, and hopefully with recent where he works today. news, we’re hoping five years from now we Photo courtesy of University of Maryland Institute of Human Virology won’t have any more AIDS.” Visit AIDSWalkMiami.org for more Dr. Robert Gallo is credited as the co- Gallo had to be able to prove it. His second information. discoverer of the link between HIV and AIDS contribution to the world of medicine was in 1984, forever changing the lives of AIDS creating the blood test still used today to patients worldwide. This year, he will be identify AIDS. traveling from Maryland to serve as the AIDS “Before you had to wait until somebody Walk Miami grand marshal. had AIDS, now it was a few weeks after Gallo’s interest in medicine stemmed from infection. And the blood test for me was his sister’s death when he was 6; she was just critical for etiology – cause – because it was 12 when she succumbed to leukemia. His goal simple, it was fast, it was safe, it was rapid, it was to study the disease, which eventually led was inexpensive, so it could be done all over him on the path to studying AIDS. Even as a the world, and it was. So we got confirmation doctor, he first heard of the disease ravaging very quickly and the world accepted… HIV is gay men from reading newspapers. the cause of AIDS,” Gallo said. He then heard Dr. James Curran, now the Gallo’s work went beyond the laboratory dean of Emory University’s Medical School as he met some of the biggest names in the in Georgia, lecture twice on AIDS. The first gay rights movement, including Martin time didn’t resonate with him. Delaney, the founder of Project Inform, “I heard him lecture again. This time it was and Larry Kramer, an LGBT activist and clear this was important, it was growing, it playwright. He would attend meetings and was scary, people were really suffering and I conferences across the country with them AIDS Walk Miami believed he was looking at me when he said, throughout the years. April 28 at 8 a.m. at the Miami Beach ‘Where are the virologists?’” The doctor first met Kramer at a party in a Convention Center Hall D, 1901 Convention At that time, proposing that AIDS was a loft at Greenwich Village. He told the doctor Center Drive in Miami Beach. Registration at virus was groundbreaking. In 1980, Gallo and he had read that AIDS can’t be transmitted 8 a.m., opening ceremonies at 8:30 a.m., 3.1- his colleagues discovered the first real cancer through sharing drinks. mile walk at 9 a.m. Registration $25. virus, belonging to a family of retroviruses. “He was drinking a drink and a few Later, the group discovered a substance that minutes later he said, ‘Hey this is great, why Post-Walk Celebration has the ability to increase T-cell growth. don’t you try it?’ So I did, to prove a point,” April 28 from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Miami Those infected with AIDS have a dramatic Gallo said. Beach Botanical Gardens, 2000 Convention drop in T cells, a type of white blood cell. For 30 years he was the head of the Center Drive in Miami Beach. Music by White blood cells are critical in defending Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology at the BarrioActivo and Aulden Brown, free the body from illness. National Institutes of Health’s National massages and drinks, goodies and vendors. As their work progressed, the study Cancer Institute. He also founded the Global Visit AIDSWalkMiami.org for more became a full-time job in the lab. When they Virus Network and the Institute of Human information. finally made the link between HIV and AIDS, Virology, where he works today. soflagaynews //
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