November 27, 2000

SPRINGFIELD, IL – The ninth annual HIV/STD (sexually transmitted diseases) Conference, Beyond 2000: A Decade for Change, will be held Tuesday (Nov. 28) through Thursday (Nov. 30) at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Springfield.

Sponsored by the Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Statewide HIV/AIDS Network and the Illinois Public Health Association, the conference will feature more than 30 sessions and include programs on the latest in sexual health, complacency issues, personal issues and an update on the international AIDS conference.

The conference begins at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and concludes with closing comments at 2:45 p.m. on Thursday.

The keynote speaker is be Rae Lewis Thornton, a political organizer with experience in presidential and U.S. Senate campaigns, who learned during a 1986 blood drive she was HIV positive. Since then, she has worked to educate audiences across the country about the disease. She will speak at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday.

Other featured speakers include:

• Tamara Kreinin, president and chief executive officer of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), 8:30 a.m. Thursday. She is a public health advocate, particularly for young people, and served as the national spokesperson for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

• Martin Delaney, founding director of Project Inform, a nonprofit AIDS foundation, 1 p.m., Thursday. He has been active in encouraging the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to accelerate approval of promising drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and in efforts to provide experimental drugs to seriously ill people prior to formal FDA approval.

• Frank Beadle De Palomo, vice president and director of the Center for Community-Based Health Strategies at the Academy for Educational Development (AED), 1:45 p.m. Thursday. For AED, he oversees management of a variety of public health initiatives in the fields of HIV/AIDS, STD, tuberculosis and hepatitis and is an external consultant for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for HIV, STD and tuberculosis prevention.

The conference is designed to benefit service providers in HIV/AIDS and STD related fields and those working in educational institutions. Attendees will include state and local health department personnel, health educators, nurses, allied health professionals, counselors, HIV/AIDS and STD educators, mental health and substance abuse counselors and social workers.