SPEAKER REMINDS STUDENTS TO FIGHT INDIFFERENCE

AIDS expert Dr. Richard Keeling urged a crowd of about 600 Southeast Missouri State University students Wednesday to fight indifference and care for their fellow man.

Keeling spoke at a noontime Common Hour lecture at Academic Hall Auditorium as part of the university's observation of World AIDS Day.

Many of the students attended for class requirements, but Dr. Christina Frazier, a biology professor who helped put the issue of AIDS into the university curriculum, said she thinks students benefit from Common Hour lectures."We are all affected even if we are not infected," she said.

Southeast received a $5,000 grant this year from the federal Centers for Disease Control and the American Association of Colleges and Universities to integrate the issue of AIDS into the curriculum.

Keeling's speech was the concluding lecture in a series of Common Hour events this fall centered on the theme, "Beyond the Red Ribbon: The Societal Impact of HIV/AIDS."Keeling, director of health services and professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, used the observance to talk about human relationships.

The AIDS epidemic has lasted for nearly two decades, and as yet there's no cure and no vaccine to protect people from the deadly disease.

But a "triple drug cocktail" has made life better for those infected with the virus. "People who weren't able to get out of bed now go to work," he said, but questions still remain,. Will there be side effects? Who can afford the drugs?"For too many people, still it is no go," he said.

A national news magazine two years ago trumpeted the end of AIDS, but that hasn't occurred, Keeling said.

An estimated 33.6 million people worldwide suffer from the virus that causes AIDS.Keeling said the biggest health problem on college campuses isn't AIDS, but isolation.

Many students come to campus feeling disconnected and lonely. Students in today's electronic and computer age are drowning in data, he said.

There's no sense of community. There's less personal communication between people, Keeling said.

The world is defined by our mass media and electronic culture. Drinking alcoholic beverages is part of that culture, he said.

Too many people view alcohol as a way to build relationships, said Keeling.

There's no sense of looking out for each other. "AIDS has shown us more than anything else how we treat each other," Keeling said.

He urges people to "stop giving up on each other" and develop a more caring society.