Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee, 31, has experienced
the impact of the AIDS epidemic firsthand; she lost two close friends, as
well as her PhD supervisor and first mentor, to the disease. But at least
Strathdee was in a position to fight back. As director of epidemiology at
the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, she has become world-renowned
for her work tracking the spread of AIDS, particularly among vulnerable
groups like young gay men and injection drug users. Through the Centre,
she has established a recruitment program in which members of these high-risk
groups sit on her team of advisors. Her zeal in following the disease is
balanced by her unflinching compassion for its victims. "When it comes
to injection drug use, the public isn't very sympathetic," she says.
"I've been talking with the media saying, `Look, people don't want
to stick a needle in their arm every day. This is an addiction.'" The
result: increased media attention, the announcement by the Vancouver Health
Board of a State of Emergency in September, 1997, and $7 million in funding
to try to stem the tide. Is Strathdee satisfied? Not a chance. "My
dream is to put myself out of a job," she says. "I'd like to be
a wizened old lady looking back on my career and saying, `I contributed
to a world without AIDS.' "
