Can anything stop AIDS?

Rockford, IL. The May 15 issue of Newsweek is devoted to a report of AIDS at 25. The raw facts indicate that 25 million have died while today, 40.5 million are now infected worldwide. The numbers of infections continue to rise at an alarming rate. In 2002, it was reported, AIDS was the leading killer of people 15 – 59.

The article contains a number of tragic stories, but the most alarming involved those who became infected in their teens. One woman was 19 when she tested positive. Another woman had chosen celibacy at the age of 18, after a single sexual encounter, but this proved to be too late. She, too, tested positive. The saddest part of her story is that she is now carrying a child. Another 17 year-old young woman had also tested positive.

Many women have contracted HIV and then, unknowingly, passed this deadly virus on to their infants, years later. This year, 1 in every 4 teens will get a sexually transmitted disease.

It is estimated that half of the new infections in the United States will be in young people ages 13-24. The CDC estimates that 1 in 3 people who already have HIV don’t know it because they have not been tested.

Polls show that a growing number of parents fear that their children will be infected with the AIDS virus. They have reason to fear. Teens are one of the age groups where AIDS is most rapidly on the rise. In recent years this subject has become less of a concern because of reports about AIDS drugs and hope for a vaccine.

In 1997, a groundbreaking film was produced. TRACY’S CHOICES documents the life of Tracy Eichman. Tracy was the first person in the state of Illinois to be sent to prison for the knowing attempt to transmit HIV.

This film tells of a young girl raised in a middle class, Midwestern home in Rockford, Illinois. Early in her life, Tracy began experimenting with alcohol. Her peers introduced her to drugs. Not long after that, she dropped out of high school.

Tracy turned to prostitution in order to earn the money to pay for her growing drug habit. She wasn’t sure if it was through prostitution or sharing needles that she became HIV positive, but she knew one thing. As she saw her life coming to an end, Tracy had to do something to warn teenagers.

TRACY’S CHOICES was Tracy’s way to turn a life of poor choices, crime, drug abuse, and desperation into something positive. Tracy begs teens not to drink alcohol or do drugs. She tells how important it is to wait until marriage for sex. She said, “I will never have a family. I will never have a husband. I will never, not have AIDS. If there was one thing I could change it would be to have never lost my virginity. For that I would give anything!”

TRACY’S CHOICES is intended for use in churches, and faith-based ministries, that promote AIDS education and abstinence. But, it has is also being used in a number of other applications, including AIDS education in Africa.

Young people can become immune to AIDS. TRACY’S CHOICES will help. A woman who works with other women in prisons recently said, “I’ve been counseling women for several years about AIDS, and this film is the best thing out there.”

Can anything stop AIDS? Experts tell us abstinence is the most effective weapon we have for the battle because it is effective 100% of the time.

TRACY’S CHOICES

M V P Productions

P. O. Box 4126

Rockford, Illinois 61110

Contact: Max Elliot Anderson (815) 877 – 1514

$29.95 per VHS copy – includes shipping and handling