Karma Chameleon
“I’m now very careful sexually, and I don’t think that knowing you’re positive does you any good ... . I can see the medical argument for getting tested nowadays ... , but there’s still a part of me that says, ’No, I’d rather not know.’ It means I’m more responsible, and careful about who I have sex with.”
-- Boy George, London’s The Pink Paper, November 28, 1997

The China Syndrome
“One high school senior said the AIDS virus comes from comets, while a six-grader described the deadly disease as a ’lovely virus.’ Another student said AIDS was a type of illness that ’makes a person asexual,’ while others said, ’People who have the disease will fall in love with those who don’t have it.’”
-- Survey on Chinese students’ AIDS awareness, Agence France-Presse, December 1, 1997

Dumb as a Post
“Far from being an equal-opportunity afflicter, AIDS in America is easily preventable. One need only avoid certain sexual and/or narcotics-injection practices and one need not worry overly much about catching AIDS .... Certainly the frenzied discussion that attended the disease from the beginning has generated resources that might not otherwise have been forthcoming. When was the last ’World Heart Disease Day,’ after all?”
-- Editorial, New York Post, December 2, 1997

Czarfly
“I could be thrown out the door into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue at any given moment. But at least I’d have a clear conscience knowing that for the people that I’d lost, I’ve done everything I possibly can. That’s the only thing that keeps me sane. That and a lot of wine.”
-- White House AIDS Czar Sandra Thurman, Windy City Times, December 4, 1997