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American Morning
20 Years Living With AIDS
Aired June 01, 2001 - 10:26 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: As the global community marks the 20th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS, the U.N. secretary-general is urging American business leaders to help fight the disease. Kofi Annan spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today. He encouraged businesses to use their expertise in marketing and public affairs to help educate the public about AIDS.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: For as long as the federal government has been tracking the spread of AIDS, Sean Strub has been living with the disease. CNN's Maria Hinojosa has the story now of one man's 20 year struggle with AIDS.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nestled in the quiet of the Pennsylvania mountains is the home of a survivor. Three times a day 42-year-old Sean Strub gulps back 15 different colored pills.
SEAN STRUB, AIDS PATIENT: That's it for now.
HINOJOSA: Sean has been living with AIDS for 20 years.
STRUB: My doctor, who was a friend, said, you know, "Look, Sean, these days, you know, you could still have two good years left."
HINOJOSA: At first he was angry.
STRUB: At the peak of the most angry activism I was involved with I only wanted to be around other people who shared that priority.
HINOJOSA: But then he got organized, becoming an outspoken, New York-based, gay activist, going from protest to protest, to arrests.
STRUB: It's about finding a purpose for you life in general. It's about being of service.
HINOJOSA: And then Sean got sick.
STRUB: You know, my viral load was 3.3 million. You know, my CD4 cells were down to one, you know, and there's supposed to be over a thousand or something. I had the purple lesions on my face and my body and in my lungs. And other people would look at me and they'd see the face of death. HINOJOSA: Along with his doctors he challenges conventional AIDS therapy.
STRUB: I've currently had, since I was diagnosed, 500 vials of blood. HINOJOSA: Started taking medication only after he got sick and now interrupts his treatments.
STRUB: Just sort of tired of being, you know, tethered to taking the drugs. I mean it wasn't...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's a perfectly understandable feeling.
HINOJOSA: He wants to give his body a break from the toxic drugs.
STRUB: You can really feel like you're taking a poison, you know, but it's a poison to counteract, you know, another problem. So it just feels like the drug is sort of surging into my body and it's like going to every -- the tips of my fingers and my toes and it's kind of like settling in and rattling some cages on the way, and I'm just sort of jittery.
HINOJOSA: Sean's philosophy of empowering people to make their own medical decisions drove him to create a magazine called "Pause" for HIV positive people.
STRUB: People with AIDS trust other people with AIDS more than virtually anyone else.
HINOJOSA: Now after 20 years of living with AIDS Sean has refocused his life again.
STRUB: So this is my oxygen factory.
HINOJOSA: Moving away from street activism...
STRUB: I wanted to get out of an urban ghetto, out of a gay ghetto. I wanted to be in the more diverse community in all sorts of different ways. You know, when you have friends, you know, just with people who have life-threatening illnesses you deal with a lot of loss and sorrow.
Hey, Ed. How are you?
ED: How are you?
STRUB: Pretty good.
HINOJOSA: He's now a developer in the quaint town of Milford, Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My relationship with Sean and his involvement in the community has had very little to do with that part of his life.
HINOJOSA: His life revolves around this town and his several business.
STRUB: What do we have for reservations tonight?
HINOJOSA: And not necessarily his illness.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It never ever enters your mind. He's constantly moving and working and he's like a visionary.
HINOJOSA: A visionary luck enough to have survived countless close friends, three lovers, and three doctors, yet who still hasn't forgotten the other faces of AIDS.
STRUB: How do I reconcile my incredible good fortune and access and success in treatment with, you know, the tens of millions of people who are so desperately in need? I don't know how other than to try and make our lives of some value.
HINOJOSA: Maria Hinojosa, CNN, Milford, Pennsylvania.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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