Chicago Tribune (CT) - WEDNESDAY October 5, 1988 Edition: FINAL Section: NEWS Page: 3 Word Count: 754
Jean Latz Griffin and John Camper

The study, a repeat of one done 18 months ago, shows that state residents in general are more knowledgeable about how AIDS is and is not transmitted, are taking measures to protect themselves if they are sexually active, and think the government should spend at least as much for research and treatment of AIDS as it does for other illnesses.

AIDS is becoming a personal issue for an increasing number of Illinois residents. One in four people aged 25 to 44 said they knew someone who had AIDS. In the general population, 12 percent said they had known someone with AIDS, up from 7 percent in January, 1987.

The survey was conducted by telephone by Richard Day Research Inc., of Evanston, between July 7 and 16 of 822 Illinois residents between 16 and 65 years old and of 201 blacks and Hispanics between 16 and 25 years old.

Dr. Bernard Turnock, director of the state Health Department, said he was pleased with the results, but added that education efforts had to continue.

"With no cure for AIDS, we must change those behaviors that put people at risk," Turnock said. "In the past 18 months, people have become more knowledgeable, more concerned, more compassionate and more likely to take proper precautions."

But the study also showed that one out of four people in Illinois-and one out of three in Chicago-say they stay away from people that they suspect are gay to avoid AIDS.

And 45 percent of doctors and those in the health professions said they were afraid of getting AIDS, double the 21 percent in the general population who said they feared contracting the disease.

Reacting to the study, Louise Shores, executive administrator of the Illinois Nurses Association, said there is "speculation" that nursing school enrollments are declining partly out of fear of AIDS.

And Dr. Edward Fesco, past president of the Illinois State Medical Society and a surgeon from LaSalle, said he would agree that "close to half of the doctors have a healthy fear of AIDS."

"Doctors also worry about their families," Fesco said. "A doctor could acquire the disease and be unaware of it. His wife could get it. We lived through TB, smallpox and polio and vaccines came along.

"But AIDS is a virus, and we have never been able to cure a viral infection," Fesco said. "All we can do is foster immunity to it, and AIDS attacks the immune system."

The actual risk to health workers is slight. After 8 years and 73,000 reported cases, only three health workers have contracted the disease from patients, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control. The risk of contracting AIDS even from a needle contaminated with infected blood is estimated by the centers to be one-half of one percent. Federal regulations recommend precautions such as wearing gloves when dealing with the blood of any patient.

Two-thirds of the people surveyed named AIDS when asked what they considered the most serious medical problem facing the nation.

And more than 60 percent said that people with AIDS should not be discriminated against and people in high risk groups should not be forced to be tested for infection.

Eight out of 10 said children with AIDS should be allowed to attend school with other children and 78 percent said AIDS education should be provided in grade school.

Young black and Hispanic men were the least likely to have changed their sexual behavior to avoid AIDS. Turnock said that was a dangerous situation due to the high rate of intravenous drug abuse in poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is an illness that destroys the body's immune system, leaving it prey to cancers and infections that a healthy person could easily fight. It is caused by a virus, human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and is spread through sex, sharing contaminated needles in shooting drugs or from mother to baby.

The virus lives primarily in blood and semen. Although it has been found in sweat, tears, saliva and urine, there is not enough of it in those fluids to cause infection. The virus cannot live in air, so it dies quickly when it leaves the body.

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