Iris


  

    Making my way to the AIDS Memorial on this bright, cloudless day I found myself thinking about all the people we have gathered there to remember. – Kathy, Joyce, and so many others.

   Today we are remembering Dr. Iris Long yet another ever-present member of ACT UP.  Paraphrasing Jim Eigo, Iris did not have to concern herself with AIDS at all.  She was a straight woman, at least 20 years older than most of ACT UP, and more than 40 years older than I am.  She was a scientist, a chemist, and when she first read about AZT, she realized that her particular specialty could help fight HIV.  So she showed up at GMHC, never having knowingly met a gay person, and volunteered.  That wasn’t a good fit – they needed buddies and hotline volunteers, not scientists.

    When she got to ACT UP, shortly after it was founded, she had found her place in the movement.  She helped budding treatment activists understand both the science and the process of drug development, both of which were crucial to ACT UP’s years of treatment activism.  

    She also turned her attention to the situation of women and children with AIDS.  At that point, women were dying of AIDS-related infections but not being diagnosed with AIDS and therefore not eligible for benefits.  ACT UP fought for and won a change to the official AIDS definition so that it included the things that women were dying of.   Children with AIDS were facing a lack of research, leaving them with even less treatment options.  At the memorial, Michelle spoke about how Iris talked her through the decision of allowed her HIV+ daughter to be used to determine the appropriate dosing of protease inhibitors so that they could be given to children.

    Sitting on the hot marble next to Ken Bing, I could almost see Iris standing at the front of the general meeting, microphone in hand, explaining scientific concepts to everyone in the room in a way that even the science-averse could comprehend.

    I don’t know which speaker said it – maybe Bill - but it’s something I have been thinking.  “We’re getting to an age,” he said “when the full-time members are going to be dying.  First as a trickle and then as a stream”

    I think the trickle has already started – Gerry Lakatos, Andy Velez, Nanette Karaoka, Tim Lunceford, Mel Stephens, Mark Milano, Iris Long, some I’ve probably left out, and just the other day came the news that Jim Wagner is gone too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shut Down Trump

Image
I had to be up at 5:30am for today’s action, so I tried to get to sleep early. It turned out to be a crazy night where I got woken up by the weird noises and vibrations of road repaving, then by Connor, who had not shown up for dinner, meowing for food which he barely ate. Then I was woken up by a weird feeling like my heartbeat was doing strange things. And then finally noisy drag racers and garbage trucks. I groggily launched myself out into the early morning, leaving behind a bunch of puzzled cats not used to getting breakfast so early. I found Ben in the crowd in front of the Main Library, and we gathered with our assigned group until it was time to march. To keep from being arrested too soon, we marched on the sidewalk filling both sides of 42nd St. As we marched to 2nd ave, I told Ben that I thought all the remembering I have been doing has to do with turning 50 and the feeling that there is more life behind me than there is ahead now. We talked about his mother and my d...
Read more

Downtown Brooklyn

Once in a while, when I have time, I like to take the bus from the beginning of the route in downtown brooklyn all the way to the end on my corner in Bay Ridge. Something about the long ride helps me think. I was in downtown brooklyn today speaking to Ben’s class of budding helping professionals overflowing with questions and eagerness. Afterwards I was going to join an environmental rally, but it was cancelled because we were badly outnumbered by hostile burly guys paid by the construction unions who booed when we raised our signs for a photo op. We could have done it anyway, but the optics would have been bad. With unexpected time on my hands, I decided to walk down to Atlantic Avenue and get the bus. On the way I thought about the changes in the neighborhood. Sid’s hardware, where I used to get lumber for my sculptures cut to size, long gone. The Board of Ed, where we did so many actions, some of which I told Ben's students about, converted into luxury apartments where I ima...
Read more

Collisions 2: past and present

Today I was schlepping my way through the hot, muggy day whem I encountered a pair of teen girls sitting on the church steps. It was well before client hours, so I gave them the usual instructions to sit on the other steps, which are not an active doorway, and then started searching for my keys. "Are you part of this?" asked one of the girls, pointing to the New Alt sign on the door. It was hot out there, so I let them in and handed them over to Danny to get some food while I got settled. Once they were upstairs in my quiet, sweaty office, the story came out. They are a lesbian couple, 15 and 16 years old, both had taken off from abusive homes, and they wanted to stay together. When I heard their ages, my heart sank. Below a certain age, there is no way to house teens without at least contacting ACS, and below 16, the youth shelters can't even take them in, they have to be placed by child welfare. Foster parents who want teens are few and far between, so most teen...
Read more