Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1985. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
AIDS is Now Rapidly on the Increase Among Heterosexual Women, MDs Say
Miami Herald - Friday, July 5, 1985
Fran Smith
SAN FRANCISCO - AIDS spread nearly twice as fast among heterosexual women as it did among gays during a 4 1/2-month period earlier this year and could claim thousands of heterosexual victims nationwide within 10 years, medical authorities say. Although researchers had warned for months that Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome can be transmitted via sexual contact between men and women, most believed that relatively few heterosexuals would contract the disease. But at a congressional hearing and in interviews with The San Jose Mercury News, experts said on Wednesday that AIDS could spread as voraciously as herpes through the heterosexual community. "Five, six or 10 years from now there are going to be more heterosexual cases in the United States than homosexual cases," Dr. Andrew Moss, an epidemiologist at the University of California at San Francisco, told the House subcommittee on intergovernmental relations and human resources meeting in San Francisco. Heterosexuals still represent only a fraction of AIDS patients. Homosexual and bisexual men, the largest group afflicted, account for 75 percent of the 11,271 cases reported to the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta since 1979. Experts have attributed 20 percent of all cases to transfusions of tainted blood or injections with contaminated needles. Roughly 5 percent of patients have contracted AIDS through heterosexual contact. However, their ranks are growing quickly, according to a new study by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. As of June 3, 97 women in the United States had caught AIDS from male sexual partners, up 64 percent from Jan. 21. During the same period, the number of homosexual AIDS patients increased 34 percent. "At the same time, we've reached the point of slowing the spread of AIDS through the homosexual population, we're seeing just the opposite in the heterosexual population," said foundation spokeswoman Holly Smith. She said that while gays had altered their sexual behavior, heterosexuals had not. "There's a real hesitancy among heterosexuals to admit they're at risk." AIDS cripples the body's immune system, leaving victims vulnerable to infections and cancers. Half the nation's victims have died. Researchers suspect the ailment is caused by a blood-borne virus known as HTLV-III. But they are years from developing a vaccine or effective therapeutic drugs, experts said at Wednesday's hearing. Chaired by Rep. Ted Weiss, D-N.Y., the hearing coincidentally took place four years to the day after the first hint of the epidemic: a Centers for Disease Control alert to physicians of an outbreak of cancer among young gays in California and New York. And although the epidemic has boomed since then, efforts by the Reagan administration to stem it have not, a dozen witnesses said. The witnesses, including doctors, patients and activists, criticized the administration for lack of leadership and funding. As a result, testing of promising drugs has been delayed, public ignorance persists, and measures that could reduce the transmission of AIDS go unheeded. "I don't think the American public realizes that nobody is in charge of AIDS," Moss said. San Francisco, known for it array of AIDS services, has become a mecca for patients around the country. But San Francisco cannot bear a burden that is expected to double in a year, city health officials said. On any given night, San Francisco General Hospital has twice as many AIDS patients as can be admitted to Ward 5B, the 14-bed ward set aside for patients with the disease. Two years ago, the hospital's clinics saw 150 AIDS patients a month; now they see 250 a week. In most cases, the city and state pick up the cost of care -- tens of thousands of dollars per patient. "The failure of the federal government to meet its responsibilities doesn't eliminate the costs," said Dr. Philip Lee, president of the San Francisco Health Commission. "It shifts them to other layers of government." Similarly, the epidemic has exacted a heavy emotional toll in San Francisco. Gayling Gee, head nurse of the AIDS Clinic at San Francisco General, described a running tally, on a blackboard in a conference room, of the patients who had died. She started what became known as "The List," after staff members complained that they often learned the fate of patients through word of mouth. But after a while, it became a grim reminder of medical impotence, she said. "It slapped us in the face each time we walked into the room," Gee said. "It was a constant reminder that we cannot do what we were trained to do." On June 27, when she added the 27th name of the month, clinic employees became so distraught that they refused to enter the room, Gee said. "I finally erased the board and started putting the names in a book," she said.
Keywords: report; statistic; health; increase; natl; california; death
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