"We the members of the Gay Truckers Association, an organization composed of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and supportive Straight drivers and their families wish to offer our full support on the research being conducted through Emory University in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health. Research conducted among mobile trucking populations in other studies has already demonstrated substantial risk factors both worldwide and nationwide in this career field.

For far too long, the health needs of today's truckers, numbering nearly 4 million, have been ignored or minimized. Public health and safety policies, in which drivers are either completely ignored or uniquely targeted for law enforcement activities have completely overlooked the reasons why these working conditions persist year after year. The presence of prostitution, drug use, and sexual promiscuity is no secret either within the industry or among the general population. The research that is currently being undertaken is long past due, although to anyone familiar with conditions in the trucking industry, it is simply restating the obvious.

While certainly drivers have personal responsibility for their conduct while on the road, it can not be overstated that drivers are uniquely faced with the Three A's of accelerated disease transmission risk factors (Access, Accountability, and Anonymity) and that when companies persist in leaving drivers stuck on the road for months at a time, racing against insane JIT (Just In Time) delivery schedules, and when they are economically backed up against the wall with ever stagnate wages, something is going to give. An exhausted driver who has been struggling out on the road for weeks or months at a time, facing sleep deprivation and impossible delivery schedules, starvation wages, and crumbling relationships at home can not bear the sole responsibility for the impaired judgment that often results from these working conditions.

As additional blue collar jobs are outsourced overseas and south of the US/Mexican Border, trucking is often the only career field left open to these "left behind" workers. Unfortunately because of their unique status as efficient conduits for the nation's goods and services, and the depressed working conditions listed above, truckers are often serve as unwitting disease transmission links between high and low risk groups. Truck drivers are not machines, and no other North American occupational group has endured more sweat shop and indentured servanthood like conditions than truckers.

This is especially evident by a July 2004 Federal Appeals Court ruling throwing out recent changes implemented by the Bush Administration. That decision, regulating the hours that truckers can work, determined that every factor but the trucker's health was considered when the changes were implemented. On the health issue alone, the judges threw out the new regulations based upon the administration's lack of concern for truckers in the development of these new Hours of Service Rules.

Yet even with the Federal Appeals Court's intervention, we expect that with the recent NAFTA related Supreme Court decision, driving conditions will worsen. With the US Supreme Court finally opening up North America markets to Mexican and developing nation trucking competition, working conditions among drivers can only further decline and erode.

There's a reason why many carriers regularly experience 100% turnover in their workforce presently. The dismal conduct practiced among some of the nations largest carriers is a reality that should have been addressed in public policy long ago. Obviously the motoring public and all of society is potentially impacted by the practices of just a few large, unethical players.

We also find absolutely appalling that nearly 25 years into the AIDS epidemic, that little or no attention has been addressed to the issue of AIDS in the trucking community. As an association made up of dedicated truck drivers, it seems completely unacceptable that the trucking trade magazines, driver organizations, and government health agencies have been entirely silent on this issue with the exception of a commendable www.Etrucker.com /Overdrive Magazine Expose on truck stop prostitution and Spokane County's unique but now dormant AIDS in the Outhouse Project, an informational campaign done in conjunction with a local Flying J Franchise. Because of their isolation, mobility, and lack of access to regular health care, truckers (far more than any other occupational group), lag far behind their peers in education, outreach, and access to reliable and accurate HIV testing.

Furthermore, the industry as a whole has turned a completely blind eye to the reality that already the trucking industry employs numerous HIV positive individuals. Rather than addressing the unique contribution these HIV positive drivers and support personal make to the trucking industry, often under the most challenging of circumstances, these HIV+ driver's health needs are totally ignored. With today's medical advances, numerous drivers are completely dependent on regular access to health care and medications, yet because of the stigma of HIV, many capable and competent drivers sacrifice their good health trying to productively function in the industry. Add to this the challenge of meeting the demands of brutal, (and illegal) hundred hour work weeks, law enforcement that targets the symptoms rather than the root of the industry's problems, potentially punitive DAC reports and a willfully ignorant industry, and the NIH/Emory work is sorely needed as a wake up call.

We the members of the GTA realize these are difficult issues to discuss and that sexual activity, prostitution and drug use are complex and emotionally charged topics. Yet we also recognize that to bury these issues and pretend they don't exist, is not a solution. We fully support continued dialogue in our industry, among public health professionals, and law enforcement exploring ways in which these concerns can be addressed while meeting the health, professional, and personal needs of the drivers we so proudly represent. We are readily willing to serve as an important resource to improve our industry not only for our members, but for the rest of our nation's dedicated and hard working truckers."

Timothy J Anderson
President Gay Truckers Association
http://www.gaytruckersassn.org

see also: http://www.discover.com/issues/aug-04/features/forbidden-science/