Miami Herald - Sunday, June 23, 1985
Marc Fisher, Herald Staff Writer

At a major conference on the disease in Miami Saturday, doctors also said that several hundred thousand Americans may already be infected with AIDS, even if they have not yet been diagnosed.

Dr. Harold Jaffe, chief of the epidemiology section of the AIDS program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, told more than 5,000 health care workers that the number of people struck with the fatal, infectious disease will double, to more than 20,000 cases, in the next year.

And, he said, studies show that more than one million Americans are carrying the HTLV-III virus, which is believed to cause the painful disease which destroys the body's immune system.

Researchers have not determined whether all carriers of the virus will suffer symptoms of the disease. The extremely long incubation period -- up to five years and in some cases, even longer -- has made it hard for scientists to predict how many people infected with the virus will develop AIDS symptoms.

But Jaffe said a survey of 7,000 homosexual men in San Francisco shows that more than half of the men who appeared to have no AIDS symptoms had some sign of the AIDS virus.

The conference at the James L. Knight Convention Center, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and more than 30 South Florida health groups, was more crowded than most rock concerts there, with a sell-out audience including more than 3,000 nurses and more than 500 physicians.

Florida has the third largest number of AIDS cases in the nation, following New York and California. About 1,000 of the country's 11,000 diagnosed AIDS cases are in Florida, and most of those are in Broward and Dade counties.

"Our battle with AIDS will last for at least the next few years, if not the next few decades," Jaffe said. "I've painted a fairly grim picture. But there may be reasons for hope."

He said gay men have drastically changed their sexual habits, becoming less promiscuous and cutting back on acts such as anal intercourse that are most likely to transmit the virus. And Jaffe said the blood test for the HTLV-III virus will virtually eliminate the danger of transmitting AIDS by blood transfusions.

But the recently-developed blood test is also causing problems, doctors said.

Those problems, they said, include a plan approved Wednesday by the Hollywood City Commission that makes the Broward city the first in the nation to include a test for the AIDS virus in pre-employment physical exams. The city decided to go ahead with the screening despite protests from physicians who explained that the blood test finds only the HTLV-III virus, not the disease.

"There are more than one million people in this country with the HTLV-III virus," said Dr. Mervyn Silverman, former director of the San Francisco health department. "To have those people eliminated from the employment pool would be a tragedy."

Silverman said use of the blood test in the fashion Hollywood intends is illegal in California.

Gary Macdonald, executive director of the AIDS Action Council, a national coalition of health groups, said Hollywood is planning an "illegal use of a test which by law is to be used solely to screen blood."

And Dr. Margaret Fischl, director of the University of Miami medical school's AIDS research unit, called the city's plan "a medically false use of that test. There is no evidence that the virus is equivalent to the disease."

Hollywood City Manager James Chandler said the test was recommended by the city's personnel department "as a reliable indicator" of AIDS.

"If we get evidence to the contrary we'll reconsider," Chandler said.

Saturday's conference was the ninth such event held around the nation in an effort to educate health workers about the disease.

"There is no cure," Silverman said. "There is no vaccine. The only line of defense is education and, from there, prevention."

Speakers sought to show health workers that AIDS is not a homosexual disease, even if more than 70 percent of the victims so far have had extensive homosexual contact.

"Clearly, AIDS has been particularly devastating to gay men," Jaffe said. "AIDS is now the leading cause of premature death in gay men in many cities."

But Dr. Clifford Lane, senior investigator for the National Institute of Health, noted that in Central Africa, AIDS has been mainly a heterosexual disease. And he said the unusually large incidence of AIDS among residents of Belle Glade, Florida, "is still a mystery."

Health workers have a long way to go to alleviate public fears and myths about AIDS, said Dr. Ginette Dreyfuss, a University of Miami psychiatrist.

She quoted a New York survey in which more than half the respondents said that homosexuals struck with AIDS are getting what they deserve.

"Often when people are talking about AIDS, they are talking about fear of homosexual people, fear of people who live in big cities," said Macdonald.

"This is not a gay disease, not a hemophiliac's disease," Silverman said. "This is everyone's disease."
850623
MH850605

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1985. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 1985. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .