QU Chronicle

Issue date: 4/17/07 Section: Online Exclusives

Media Credit: Neil Rogers/The Chronicle THE AIDS QUILT MADE ITS WAY to Quinnipiac April 10 for a two-day exhibit during which there was an interactive lecture about AIDS education.

"This is the safest sex you will ever have in your life," Elaine Pasqua said to a small crowd in Alumni Hall April 10 at an interactive lecture following an annual two-day AIDS Memorial Quilt exhibit.

Pasqua, who is the president of Project Prevention, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide AIDS prevention education, asked students to mix small cups together in a symbolic demonstration of how easily HIV is transferred.

Emulating a chemistry experiment, cups were filled with water while three unidentified cups of sodium hydroxide infiltrated the group. Students were instructed to "have sex" with three other people by mixing their fluids together to symbolize how the virus can be spread. Students anxiously waited in line to see if their cups would test positive for HIV, or in this case turn pink, with a drop of phenolphaline. Initially only three cups of the 25 were "infected," but this number ballooned to 19 before the demonstration was over.

Michelle Lapointe, a freshman veterinary technology major, said even though the exercise was a demonstration, she was perturbed when her cup turned pink. "You think it's never going to happen to you. I was shocked when it did. I swear, I saw my life flash before my eyes," she said.

The exhibit and lecture were sponsored by Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), a Quinnipiac organization. According to James Kay, the treasurer, the quilt display received a "steady flow of people." Group members were disappointed by the small turnout for Tuesday's lecture, but Pasqua did not let that stop her from conducting a powerful demonstration. She mixed raw emotion with cheeky humorous displays like a "masturbation song" and other innovative tips for safe sex.

But the lecture was not all fun and games. Pasqua lost both her mother and stepfather to AIDS and vowed to spread education and prevention by speaking at many colleges and universities to tell her story.

Her stepfather was a test subject for a drug called interferon, which was believed to treat hepatitis. The blood supply was contaminated with the HIV, and in 1979 and 1980, no one knew to be cautious of it. "He unknowingly contracted HIV and unknowingly passed it on to my mother," she said.

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