ANTI-AIDS ADS' EXPOSURE LIMITED

Provocative Images Will Be Distributed To A Carefully Targeted Audience, In
Hopes Of Spreading Safer Behavior Beyond Gay White Men

Scenes depicting gay sex and drug use will cover billboards, matchbook
covers and public benches this summer as part of a provocative campaign by
Alameda County to stem the spread of AIDS.

The county's "social marketing" campaign will target groups at high risk of
contracting the AIDS virus: gay and bisexual minority men, their female
partners and intravenous drug users. Health professionals said previous
public-service messages have failed to change the often fatal behavior of
these individuals.

"Sometimes drastic measures are needed in extraordinary circumstances," said
Chris Catchpool, executive director of Casa Segura, an Oakland
needle-exchange center. "These images are ones that people who are involved
in that lifestyle will readily recognize."

The most graphic image in the campaign is a picture of two naked men shown
from the waist up. One is lying on top of the other, and on a nightstand
next to them are an empty bottle of cognac and an unused condom.

The accompanying slogan is, "Been there. Done that. Get tested. It could
save your life."

"It is meant to be explicit and in-your-face because we have found that for
these populations anything short of that doesn't get their attention," said
Sherri Willis of the county's public health department.

The image of the men drew an outcry from two county supervisors when public
health officials presented it to the board earlier this year. Officials
planned to put the image on billboards and AC Transit buses, but protests
from supervisors Scott Haggerty and Gail Steele convinced them to relegate
it to gay bars and a bathhouse in Berkeley.

County officials also agreed to keep all of the images in the campaign away
from schools.

"I just found that kind of advertising distasteful and not appropriate to
subject our children in our county to," said Haggerty, whose district
includes Livermore and Pleasanton. "I would just hope that there are more
appropriate ways to get the message out without having to put up such an
illicit graphic."

Last-Ditch Effort

Health professionals say the campaign is a last-ditch effort to decrease
risky behavior among gay and bisexual inner-city men and drug addicts.
Public health campaigns have succeeded at slowing the rate of HIV infection
among gay white men, but the same messages have failed with other groups.

In Alameda County, IV drug users represent nearly half of those testing
positive for HIV. And inner-city men are spreading HIV from their gay male
partners to black women at an alarming rate.

In 1997, black women represented 60 percent of the county's AIDS cases among
women even though they represent about 17 percent of the county's female
population.

"What we are beginning to see is increased HIV exposure among heterosexual
women who are not engaged in high-risk behavior," Willis said. "They're
getting it from men who are secretly having sex with other men."

Alameda County is among six counties to receive state funds for the program.
With a grant to the city of Long Beach, state spending on the effort totals
$3 million.

Contra Costa County has taken a dramatically different approach. Rather than
spending most of its money on public-health messages, the county is training
high school students to make HIV education presentations in the schools.

"For us it's not just the message that's important, it's the messenger,"
said Christine Leivermann, Contra Costa's AIDS program director. "We want to
empower young people to better get the message out about HIV within their
community."

In Alameda County, the image of the two naked men will be relegated to
matchbook covers, postcards and condom packages distributed in gay
establishments. But billboards and benches in Oakland and Berkeley will
depict images of bloody needles and gay youths cruising for sex partners at
a pick-up spot at Lake Merritt.

The messages were created using focus groups like those advertisers use to
market consumer products.

"People didn't respond well to preachy images," Catchpool said. "What seemed
to work was something that reflected the intimate aspect of how HIV is
spread."

Even the tamer images in the campaign have drawn criticism from some within
Catchpool's organization, Casa Segura, which distributes thousands of
needles to addicts each week in the Fruitvale neighborhood.

"Some felt the images were too personal ... and others felt images like
these in public would stigmatize the community as a bad neighborhood," he
said.

But there's strong evidence that addicts who endanger their lives each day
from drugs are capable of protecting themselves from HIV, Catchpool said.
Casa Segura recently tested 270 addicts who regularly use the needle
exchange and only two tested positive for HIV.

Others question whether individuals who have failed to heed previous AIDS
messages will be swayed by a more provocative public-health campaign.

"I have a hard time with sex education for adults," said Supervisor Gail
Steele. "We're going on nearly 20 years with AIDS, and it's pretty clear to
everyone how you get it. If they haven't listened by now, they might not
ever listen."