AIDS Hysteria

In the Crimson of November 21, the speakers in the UHS Student Health Advisory Council's forum on issues relating to AIDS were characterized as having "strongly criticized the lack of social concern about AIDS." By focusing in its article on the rapid spread of AIDS, the Crimson is awakening "social concern about AIDS," and in a sense doing a service. But without any of the information that is known about the epidemiology of the disease, information which was dispensed in liberal proportion at the SHAC forum and unfortunately omitted entirely from the Crimson article, that "social concern" is more likely to be translated into hysteria than into any constructive attempt at AIDS prevention.

Since the number of AIDS cases is now doubling almost annually, and since we have now and will have in the near future neither vaccine, nor cure, nor treatment for AIDS, our only weapon at the present time is prevention. The way to maximize prevention is a rational campaign to educate our citizens, both within and without so-called "high-risk" groups, as to what is known of the epidemiology of the HTLV-III virus. Dr. Ho, Dr. Forstein, and Prof. Brandt all stressed that the virus is extremely fragile and difficult to transmit. In ten million person-hours of medical care, said Dr. Forstein, including care before the HTLV-III virus was identified and medical workers began to take simple precautions, not one case of casual transmission has ever been recorded. The virus is transmitted only when one person's bodily fluids in which it is present enter the body of another person. Blood and semen are examples of fluids which commonly carry the HTLV-III virus; on the other hand, of 83 saliva samples taken from HTLV-III carriers in a recent Massachusetts General Hospital study mentioned by Dr. Ho, the virus was found in only one of them, and in very small concentration.

On the basis of the hard medical evidence that exists, people can make choices in their lives which will affect their personal risk of contraction or transmission of HTLV-III. Getting sneezed on by an AIDS patient, for instance, will not make you a carrier of HTLV-III under normal circumstances, and if you suspect you are a carrier of HTLV-III, sneezing on someone will not infect him or her; some forms of sexual contact involving the exchange of body fluids between persons pose a higher risk, and persons considering such contact should speak with an informed source, such as CONTACT, UHS, or the AIDS Action Line, regarding relative risks.

AIDS is a medical enigma up to a point, but enough is known about it that a positive educational campaign based on what is known already had an immense effect in reducing the rate of its spread. According to Dr. Forstein, sexually- transmitted diseases have decreased by 75 to 80 percent in the gay community in the last two years, much of this decrease resulting directly from AIDS education. But as long as people are putting themselves and others at unecessary risk without a clear awareness of that risk, there is a long road ahead. The Crimson does well to awaken "social concern," but that concern is apt to degenerate into hysteria if it is not guided into a rational and constructive preventative channel. The press, with its great educative power, has a duty to direct that concern into AIDS prevention, rather than abandoning it to become AIDS hysteria. Richard B. Mintz '87   Publicity Coordinator, HR-GLSA