Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald - Thursday, November 16, 1995
Susana Bellido, Herald Staff Writer
In the Keys, about 5.6 percent of gay men checked for the infection test positive; about 1.3 percent of all Keys residents checked for the infection test positive. Those rates have held steady in recent years.
Throughout the country, awareness about the illness has slowed the spread of the AIDS virus among gay men, but some areas, including the Keys, are not seeing a drop in new cases. In Key West, the infection rate among homosexual men has remained steady, and the young are the most affected, according to figures from the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
In an conference next month, AIDS experts will ask gay leaders, bar owners and others in the community to help persuade gays to take precautions.
National AIDS experts will participate in the Gay Summit on Dec. 1 and 2 at the Holiday Inn La Concha.
Frank Garner, chairman of a Monroe County group that oversees local efforts to fight AIDS, said he hopes the conference will spur some of the action the area saw a decade ago.
"The community really got organized back in the '80s with awareness and education and with what to do and not to do," he said. "That's why the numbers started dropping in the gay community. There is not just as much happening right now."
HRS's Disease Prevention Center is planning to recruit volunteers to hand out condoms and test information in bars and public areas known for gay sex.
Between January and October, 30 of the 2,308 people tested in clinics throughout the Keys for HIV were infected. Among the 30, 16 were men who have sex with men and 23 were under 39 years old. Some young men feel invulnerable and believe AIDS is an illness of an older generation, experts say. Some are fatalistic and expect to get the disease no matter what. Some are unwilling to protect themselves.
"My own explanation," Garner said, "is that people that are in their early 20s have not been exposed to people getting sick and their friends dying," he said. "I was around when the disease first hit, and friends of mine started getting sick and dying. There was a point were I was going to memorial or funeral services twice a week, and that just hasn't happened to the young gay men."
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