The Associated Press - Thursday, September 2, 1999
Russ Bynum - Associated Press Writer

As 2,000 researchers, physicians and activists concluded the four-day National HIV Prevention Conference on Wednesday, they left with renewed warnings that pills alone won't stop the disease any time soon.

"We clearly want to say to people, `Wake up!' Prevention is just as important in 1999 as it was in 1981," said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the center for HIV prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Well-worn reminders about abstinence and condom use are having a hard time competing with news of the drug cocktails that can reduce the amount of virus in the blood to undetectable levels.

In fact, the advances in drug treatments have left some people with a false sense of security that the disease is all but cured. Scientists want to make people more aware of the advances, but they also need to be careful not to go too far, Valdiserri said.

"We're walking a tightrope here," he said. "Medical care providers ... don't want people to be so frightened out of their wits that they may be infected with HIV that they don't get diagnosed for five or 10 years." On the other hand, he said, they want to be concerned with "not putting out a message that's so strong people think, `Gee, you know, maybe it's not such a big deal anymore."

Three years of declining AIDS deaths means more Americans than ever are living with HIV. The CDC estimates the total number is as high as 900,000. While infected people are living longer, it also means there are more people capable of spreading the virus.

And new infections are holding steady at a rate of roughly 40,000 a year, a pace that hasn't slowed this decade. About half of new infections are believed to be among Americans under 25.

Studies released during the conference also showed that risky sexual behaviors are continuing among young Americans. A survey of 3,492 gay men aged 15 to 22 found that 7 percent were infected with HIV and 41 percent had anal sex without using a condom.

"We're talking about every hour of every day a young person being infected somewhere in the United States," said Dr. Donna Futterman, director of the adolescent AIDS program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "Given that we know how to prevent HIV, there's no reason for the epidemic to be continuing at this rate."

Some activists blame the president and Congress, who have failed to increase funding for HIV prevention programs as they have for research and treatment efforts.

Steven Fisher of the activist group AIDS Action said its time for another awareness campaign to match the mass mailings of AIDS information launched by then-Surgeon General C. Everett Koop under President Reagan.

"Many newly sexually active young people were too young to read when that came out" in the 1980s, Fisher said.

Now American youth are seeing slick ads for AIDS drugs that show people engaged in rock climbing and other athletic activities. The messages that say drugs help people with HIV to lead active lives are overpowering the warnings that AIDS still kills, Fisher said.

"We want positive messages about people living with HIV," he said. "But we also need to send the message that getting HIV is not a good thing." Activists and researchers say there's a need to deliver the same warnings about risky sex in a splashy new way, seizing on everything from the popularity of the Internet to the same flashy advertising tricks used to sell sneakers and soft drinks.

"Coca-Cola hasn't changed," Ms. Futterman said. "It's the same product, yet they constantly update their marketing."
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