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Keristan AIDS/HIV Testing 1986 - 1991
Summary
Beginning in Fall 1986, the entire adult Keristan membership was tested for AIDS/HIV at clinics in San Francisco and AIDS/HIV testing continued as a mandatory requirement for all new members before any sexual contact on a sleeping schedule. The mandatory AIDS testing policy was still in place when Kerista dissolved in 1991.
Tom R - ( friend of commune Nov 2018 )
In October 1986, the AIDS policy was in place. That was when I first contacted Kerista.
Sun ( email to Kip - Aug 2018 )
...I recall that we all instituted the ... (mandatory AIDS/HIV) tests the year that Kira Joy joined us ... I do recall getting tested for STDs, and not before ( my joining in July 1986 ) but after being on the sleeping schedule...
Kip
I joined in 1984 with no testing. In 1985, Jas joined the family, and Rock Hudson died of AIDS, and the AIDS test became available. In 1986, Sun and Eco joined the community. Also in early1986, the government public health recommended the AIDS/HIV test for at-risk groups and Keristans started mandatory AIDS/HIV testing.
Even though we lived in San Francisco, we floundered on AIDS. We were preaching non-monogamy when people were dying of non-monogamy, and we didn't know what to do. No one really knew what AIDS meant. It came from Africa, transmission was sexual or blood-borne. We heard stories from gay friends in the city of this mean wasting disease that had them frightened and slowed the promiscuity. AIDS was killing gay men, but we had no gay men in the commune. There was only minimal sexual contact with gay men in our member's personal histories. Most Keristans had been heterosexual and fidelitous in the community since 1978. Unusually, Jud had no opinion on this subject. But in early 1986, the government called for at-risk people to self-report and be tested for AIDS, and the criteria included heterosexuals with multiple sexual partners. We met the criteria.
We discussed our response, but the situation was still confusing. In the summer of 1986, Tye won us over with, "since it is only antibody-testing (if you had been exposed to the virus, not if you are infected by the virus) then we don't want to know." This position only lasted a few months. By the fall of 1986, we decided as a commune that it was better to know. All Keristans were tested (except the kids) and everybody self-reported negative.
In the fall of 1986, I was tested for AIDS in a Castro clinic staffed with very professional doctors with a group of other Keristans. The doctors asked a lot of personal sexual and drug use questions and seemed trying to understand how AIDS was spreading, but we werent much of a threat. They took my blood, I was negative. After all of tested clear, a mandatory AIDS/HIV test was required of all new Keristans and it was common knowledge and much-discussed in the Growth Coop and within the commune.
Fir ( Facebook post Aug 2018 )
I'd forgotten we even did it!
The Keristan mandatory AIDS testing policy was questioned on Wikipedia and I was unable to find any written reference to the policy, despite being a very public policy of ours. Since it happened on my watch, it prompted me to reconstruct the early AIDS Timeline, enclosed. We heard about all this stuff as it was happening in SF 80's. In hindsight, Kerista was slow to respond to a threatening public health crisis, Rajneeshpurum beat us by a full year.
AIDS History Timeline:
March 1985 - AIDS antibody test released by FDA after 9 months of science.
July 1985 - The entire US donated-blood supply was fully tested for AIDS/HIV.
July 1985 - US public health supports state clinics to administer tests to self-identified at-risk groups from the general public.
Sept 1985 - 21,179 people were tested in the US.
Sept 1985 - Rajneeshpurum in Oregon tested their entire commune and found 2 positives ( ! ).
Dec 1985 - CDC - 79,100 tested in 874 test centers in US by year end.
March 1986 - US public health recommends at-risk groups to test for AIDS/HIV.
Sept 1986 - All Keristans tested negative for AIDS/HIV and mandatory testing required for all new members.
-kip 2018-12-02
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