Stigma of Disease Persists; Residents of Macon's Rainbow Center Recount Slights

The way some people treat HIV/AIDS patients is akin to racism, according to Johnny Fambro, director of Macon, Georgia's Rainbow Center and the Central City AIDS Network, which provides housing assistance to some 400 HIV/AIDS patients in 23 counties. He said despite extensive efforts to educate the public, the disease is sometimes still seen as "a moral or ethical issue, and not a health issue."

"There should not be a need for my organization," Fambro said. "We're having to house people, we're having to provide health care for folks, and transportation and things that historically family or friends would help provide."

Fambro and James Baker, a Baptist preacher and substance-abuse counselor at the Rainbow Center, both pointed to instances where family members had turned their backs on HIV/AIDS patients. "[They] feed them out of paper plates," Baker said. "They don't want them in the house, they don't want to touch anything they touch."

"You can't get this disease by hugging someone, by shaking their hand. But that's hard for a lot of people to see.. Twenty-five years later, that's the sad part," Baker said. "Fear comes from not knowing."

One Rainbow Center resident told of not being hired to do more yard work after his employer dropped him off and recognized the center as "the AIDS place." Another said one patient's family had thrown out a coffee cup from which he had drunk.

The ongoing stigma and the need for confidentiality are reflected in the fact that the Hope Center in Bibb County, which provides treatment for roughly 800 people from 13 mid-state counties, does not list its address on its Web site.