SOUNDING OFF: New AIDS/HIV figures are frightening

The Centers for Disease Control has revised the number of new infections of HIV by a staggering 40%. The CDC’s new incidence estimates revealed that the HIV epidemic is, and has been, worse than previously known. The long-standing estimate of 40,000 new infections of Americans is actually 56,000. This finding is more frightening than anything CDC officials had projected in the three decades of the AIDS epidemic.

Gay and bisexual men account for more than half of the new infections.

“These numbers are a scathing indictment of how profoundly the U.S. and CDC’s prevention efforts have failed,” said Michael Weinstein, president of Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Among the factors suspected of contributing to the increase in HIV infection are the difficulty of maintaining safe sex practices over a lifetime, younger generations of gay and bisexual men who never witnessed the disease’s deadly potential of the ‘80s and ‘90s and inadequate delivery of prevention messages tailored to gay and bisexual men, the group which accounts for 53% of new infections.

One of the things keeping prevention messages from reaching this population is the rigid restrictions placed on most federal AIDS dollars, which prohibit explicit discussions of sexual situations.

Neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate has proposed any increase in funding for HIV prevention, according to Gene Copello, executive director of the AIDS Institute in Washington, D.C., from beonecity.com.

This information, while not surprising, is of great concern. This epidemic seems to have been largely forgotten by the public at large. People seem to think AIDS is no longer a problem. While the new drugs are very effective, the side effects can be very debilitating. I have a friend in his 30s who had a stroke followed a few months later by a heart attack as side effects of his drug regimen.

The HIV Advisory Committee meets the first Thursday of each month at 4 p.m. in Conference Room A at Laguna Beach City Hall. The public is encouraged and welcome to attend any of the meetings. In the upcoming months the committee will be planning for our annual World AIDS Day Event on Dec. 1 at Main Beach Park.

SCOTT ALAN is chairman of the Laguna Beach HIV Advisory Committee.