In the early 1990’s I took the place of State Rep. Penny Pullen (R-Park Ridge) on a panel discussing the HIV/AIDS for a pilot of a TV talk show.

The hostess was the recently-retired president of Planned Parenthood, Fay Waddleton.

The only other panel member I can remember was Kristine Gebbie, who had served on President Ronald Reagan’s AIDS/HIV panel with Penny. Gebbie was the head of public health in Washington (having served earlier in the same position in Oregon). She later because President Bill Clinton’s AIDS Czar. (She and Penny basically wrote the commission’s report, which has stood the test of time.)

I am reminded of this because Chicago Tribune columnist Dawn Turner Trice, a black woman, has a Wednesday column on the black women and AIDS.

“Who is most at risk?” was the gist of the question I was called upon to answer in the WBBM television studio.

My answer was “black women.”

The audience erupted in protest. One black woman stood up and screamed at me at the top of her lungs.

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