ABSTRACT: The information and prevention campaign concerning Aids in Italy is marked by delays, uncertainties, interference on the part of the political and religious milieu, which seriously jeopardize its effectiveness. The initiatives taken by the Radicals in Parliament and in the country.

(Radical News n. 87 of 28 April 1988)

Our country, unlike all the other industrialized countries (and not only those) has not, as yet, launched a prevention campaign against Aids. Who is to be blamed?

Some time ago, the RAI (1) decided not to air the advertisements produced by the Tbwa on behalf of "Pubblicità Progresso" (2), because Aids was too explicitly associated with drugs, homosexuality and condoms; Berlusconi's networks decided to air only some of the advertisements that had been produced and then only late in the evening.

We must point out that a relevant part of our political world and especially the part that occupies strategic positions in the public administration and in the State corporations, is presently strongly influenced by the Catholic world. We are witnessing a precise campaign against the promotion of some of the absolutely necessary means for any serious initiative against Aids, such as condoms, birth control for Hiv-affected women, diffusion of disposable needles, an informative campaign in schools.

Not only newspapers such as the Osservatore Romano (3) and Il Sabato (4), but also Avvenire (5) and Il Popolo (6) publish anachronistic articles which, regardless of any real evidence, provide indications that are clearly biased. It is legitimate to decide individually not to use condoms, for religious or moral reasons, but to expect this behaviour to be generally adopted with the pretext that the use of condoms is unreliable, is a very serious fact. We would like to recall, on this subject, that the Masters Johnson report, while providing the most pessimistic and negative evaluation on Aids, states that condoms are 85% safe (and this is the lowest evaluation among those registered by experts in the whole world).

In the opinion of these Catholics, everything seems to be reduced to chastity, because, as the Osservatore Romano eloquently says: "the excess of freedom in sexual matters corrupts the moral texture of people...and to fight against a lethal disease also with the weapons of virtue will be an additional incentive, but what is truly peculiar of a Christian is the effort to correct".

Our Minister of Health, Carlo Donat Cattin, is the most convinced advocate of the practical application of this cultural trend, and prefers doing nothing rather than betraying these principles.

About nine months ago, the Health Ministry had announced a contest reserved to advertising agencies, to choose, on the basis of some of the indications given, which prevention campaign was to be promoted through the mass medias. The ministry did not consider it appropriate to order direct messages, but rather messages suitable to promote chaster sexual behaviours along with a non specified prophylaxis. Eight among the major advertisements agencies operating in Italy deposited hypotheses of campaigns with relative estimated expenditure, but up to this day no decision has been taken.

Instead, the Health Minister is preparing to send a letter to all Italian families containing information on Aids; the letter, ready since September of last year, consists in a text of eleven pages, which will be sent to all, regardless of the fact of singling out a specific target. Families will thus once again be the intermediary of so-called delicate problems; but how many people will read such a wordy letter? How many people will understand it? How many will read it to their children and how many will discuss it with them?

There is no coordination programme between the Health Ministry and the Ministry for Public Education to provide young people with a specific information on Aids aimed at preventing some high-risk behaviours. And yet, the category of young people is the one that is more heavily affected by the disease: of the 1619 cases of Aids recorded in Italy as from 1 March '88, 890 concerned youths between 20 and 29 years of age. If we consider that 64,8% of Aids patients are drug addicts, and that, according to the Ispes, 69,5% of all the drug addicts of our country are in an age ranging from 13 to 20, a direct intervention in high schools appears as both extremely urgent and necessary. But Aids is a sexually-related disease and, as we all know, there is no sexual information in schools. And yet all the surveys say that young people start having complete sexual intercourse as soon as age 15, and that the families can hardly provide an adequate sexual information. But these are problems that our Health Minister disregard

s. The same way as he disregards the fact that - according to a survey conducted by the Inda institute, in 10 European countries and in the U.S. - in Italy the public opinion is bewildered at the lack of an authoritative information on the part of the state.

Thus, risk groups are continually mentioned, rather than risk- behaviours; money is invested in new hospital beds rather than in day hospital structures; chastity rather than prevention is promoted; Hiv-affected persons are filed; international conferences are deserted....The obvious result is that of having an unchecked surge of the diffusion of Hiv infection, with Hiv-affected persons which will try to avoid sanitary structures in order not to be identified.

The lack of an adequate information has the effect of making the Hiv-affected person and an Aids patient be considered the same thing, and therefore treated in the same way. The decision of some corporations to submit their newly hired staff to compulsory tests is eloquent; equally eloquent is the request addressed to the State to promote the hiring of Hiv-affected persons through public subventions.

Enough is enough. And in this desolating context the acts of Cardinal Martini - who washed the feet of some Aids patients and Hiv-affected persons on Thursday before Easter - and General Agostino Di Donna - who made condoms available in the barracks to all conscription soldiers and military staff - strike us as acts of superior wiseness.

Of course, the confirmation of Donat Cattin as Health Minister is no good news for all those who, like us, believe that the battle against Aids is an incontestable priority.

Many have been the initiatives of the Radical deputies and senators, both to urge a concrete public intervention in the battle against Aids, and to perform some corrections on the programmes of the Health Ministry.

To remain with the interventions of this legislature only (therefore from July '87) and excluding those relative to special cases, we would like to recall;

- 16.12.'87: interrogation (first signer Vesce) to guarantee an adequate assistance to Hiv-affected prisoners:

- 22.2.'88: interpellation (first signer Rutelli) on the dispositions to be adopted for the enforcement of the European programme against Aids;

- 25.2.'88: on the initiative of Rutelli and De Lorenzo (Liberal Party), 31 members of Parliament belonging to seven groups signed a motion to commit the government to prepare, within 30 days, a global plan of prevention and information on Aids; in particular, the government is requested to enforce those active interventions indicated by the World Health Organization and by the Conference of London;

- 26.2.'88: an interpellation (fist signer Modugno) to promote the production and the distribution of disposable needles in Italy as well;

- 3.3.'88: an interpellation (first signer Spadaccia) on the reasons for the exclusion of Prof. Aiuti from the ministerial commission for the battle against Aids; a similar interpellation was presented at the Chamber of Deputies (first signer Rutelli) signed by the members of eight groups (European federalist, Liberal Party, Communist Party, Socialist Party, Republican Party, Greens, Proletarian Democracy, Independent Left);

- 17.3.'88: an interrogation (first signer Rutelli) to favour the allotment of funds for the centre of immunology of the Umberto I Polyclinic of Rome;

- 6.4.'88: a motion (first signer Modugno) to commit the government to a prevention campaign in schools;

- 6.4.'88: an interpellation (first signer Modugno) on the reasons for the non-launching of a prevention campaign.

We would also like to recall that Domenico Modugno personally wrote to the health minister to urge a campaign to promote the use of condoms (October '87) and to protest against the attitude assumed by the minister toward the world summit on the diffusion of Aids which was held in London in February '88. Modugno had also written to all the mayors of all the provincial main towns and to all the presidents of the Regions in December '87, asking for the free distribution of needles for drug addicts.

Finally, on this subject many amendments have been presented both to the '88 Financial Law and to the conversion of the draft bill 27. The amendments, all rejected, were meant to link the allotment of funds (over 140 billion Lire) to precise and concrete programmes, especially directed at the young people and the drug addicts; a potentiation of the day hospital structures and an increase by 25 billion of the funds allotted to the research on Hiv infections were also contained in the amendments.

Translator's notes:

(1) RAI: Italian state television.

(2) Pubblicità Progresso: state-funded advertisements aimed at educating and promoting correct ethic, sanitary and other behaviours.

(3) L'Osservatore Romano: Vatican official daily newspaper.

(4) Il Sabato: right-wing Catholic political and cultural magazine.

(5) Avvenire: Catholic daily newspaper.

(6) Il Popolo: Daily newspaper of the Italian Social Democrat Party.