Aug. 7, 2002
All publications Front Page Nightspots Blacklines En La Vida Out! Resource Guide Current WCT Issue	Howard Brown to Assist Chinese in HIV/AIDS Prevention
	By D. Kevin McNeir   Howard Brown Health Center, the leading private provider of HIV/AIDS services in the Midwest, recently accepted an invitation from the Peoples' Republic of China to provide education on HIV and AIDS. The Brown contingency will travel in late September for a 10-day visit at the request of the Provincial Health Bureau of Zhejiang Province. "We all have a collective responsibility to battling HIV/AIDS, no matter what country we are from," said Keith Waterbrook, executive director, HBHC. "This is a great opportunity for joint research and for us to develop an important relationship between the City of Chicago and the people of China." According to Waterbrook, Howard Brown was initially contacted about six months ago and asked to provide educational programs on HIV and AIDS to the Zhejiang Province...a southern coastal province with a population of about 50 million. A six-person contingency will travel to two of the province's major cities...Hangzhou, the capital and Wenzhou, a coastal city. And much to Waterbrook's delight, particularly in light of recent budget cuts and staff reductions, the provincial government will pay all of Howard Brown's expenses with a private company picking up the cost of international airfare. In addition to Waterbrook, the team from Howard Brown will include the Center's outreach director, women's and men's health managers, the director of the on-site Walgreen's Pharmacy and a representative from the Centers for Disease Control, Chicago office. Howard Brown has gained a local and international reputation as an innovative health and human service organization focusing on the LGBT community and since its founding in 1974 when its original focus was on the provision of low-cost, confidential testing and treatment of STD's, the Center has increased its scope and made a name for itself in the area of HIV/AIDS research. "During our stay in China we have been asked to target three groups...IV drug users, women sex workers and gay men," he said. But Waterbrook added that other areas of interest to the Chinese government include HIV-positive patients and the workplace, the management of HIV-positive prisoners and the management of HIV-positive transient citizens who travel from the countryside to the cities. "Given the spread of the disease and the incident rate, we have a country where the epidemic is really just beginning, " he said. "We have the kinds of information and experience that the Chinese need as they begin to address their own HIV-positive population. And we will be very candid in sharing the ways we have dealt with the disease in the U.S....both the things we have done well and the mistakes we've made. Waterbrook has developed a 15-year relationship with the Chinese province regarding healthcare issues and said he believes that is one reason why Howard Brown was chosen to participate. "We have addressed a lot of health issues in my travels to the Zhejiang Province...heart transplants, complicated surgeries, health and administration policies and pathology are just a few," he said. "But during this visit we will also have candid discussions on the recent advances in prevention, treatment and research on HIV/AIDS. We have been asked to meet with health officials on the provincial and municipal level as well as a group of university officials." In addition, the Chinese hope to benefit from Howard Brown's long tradition of participation in research initiatives, which date back to the 1970s when the Center gained national prominence through the involvement in a study that led to the development of the Hepatitis B vaccine. In 1983, the Center again achieved widespread acclaim when it was chosen to participate in a large-scale study of the natural history of AIDS in gay and bisexual men. The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) continues today and is the largest epidemiological study in the world on sexual practices and how they relate to the transmission of HIV. The trip to China will not be Howard Brown's first effort at international HIV prevention work...in December 1999, the Center was part of Vzygen HIV phase II trials with sites in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand; in 2000, outreach director Borris Powell attended the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa and conducted HIV pre-conference workshops for the local population; and last year, a group from Nigeria spent a week at HBHC learning HIV prevention and learning more about the Center's medical program. "Research and sharing information with other agencies...both local and abroad...have been an important part of Howard Brown's goals since our founding," he said. "This trip to China, we believe, is just the beginning of tremendous opportunities for joint research programs."
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