The informal forum was sponsored by the Gallagher Health Center with the goal of raising AIDS awareness and answering students’ questions about its effect on life.

The speakers warmly told their life stories and the details behind their relationship. They were very open to answering meaningful questions asked by students in attendance.

Barringer is a graduate student studying at James Mason University. Her research there focuses on preventing the spread of HIV among adolescents.

Decker, her partner, is a hemophiliac who acquired HIV through a tainted blood transfusion at age seven back in the ’80s. At that time, blood transfusions were not screened for HIV. As a matter of fact, having a blood transfusion then was “as risky as having sex with 1000 unprotected people,” according to Decker.

Because AIDS was relatively unknown and feared when Decker was diagnosed with HIV in the sixth grade, Decker was expelled from school.

After he informed his parents of his intention to go back to school, his parents successfully lobbied for his reinstatement. Decker humorously noted that he missed a lot of school in the seventh grade, not from being sick due to AIDS but from skipping to watch soap operas. He didn’t feel that life was worthwhile. Meeting Depeche Mode in a Make-a-Wish Foundation service in high school helped change his outlook on his life.

Since the age of 20, he has actively promoted AIDS awareness. “It helps me to talk about it,” said Decker.

Barringer became an AIDS awareness activist after being inspired by a speaker she heard in a class on AIDS. She met Decker while searching for a speaker with HIV who could help her effectively promote the awareness of AIDS.

It’s important for all people to get tested for their HIV status, although testing should not be used as a means for prevention said Barringer. Although she lives with a person who has HIV, she feels that she has a “lower risk than most people” who are not as insistent on safe sex practices. Condoms are often not effective in preventing the transmission of HIV during sex because many people do not know how to properly use them.

Some of the myths about AIDS medication are that AIDS patients need to only take relatively few pills and can go off the medication easily if they are healthy at that time. Decker has to carefully take a large number of pills—20—at the right time each day—some with water and some without. Because his immune system has adapted to taking the medication, if he were to stop taking it for a only a few months, his CD4 count, an immune system measurement, would decline significantly.

Although it is illegal for insurance companies to deny persons living with HIV insurance, they still often charge very high costs for premiums—in Decker’s case $500 a month. Decker also has to pay for very expensive AIDS medication that costs $20,000 a year.

Over the years Decker and Barringer have raised AIDS awareness at about 50 universities and colleges nationwide, most of them on the East Coast. Their lectures are coordinated by CAMPUSPEAK Inc., an agency that represents campus lecture speakers.