Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - November 2, 1986
Laura Mansnerus and Katherine Roberts
Dr. David Baltimore of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-chairman of the committee that wrote the academy's 390-page report, said it was "quite honestly frightened" by the disease's potential for rapid spread.
The academy called on the Government to allocate $2 billion a year by 1990 for education campaigns and development of a vaccine and therapeutic drugs.
The committee said a vaccine was at least five years away, and estimated that in that time the cumulative death toll would reach 179,000. About 13,000 AIDS deaths have been recorded so far.
The Government's response, the report said, has been "woefully inadequate." The Reagan Administration has declared AIDS its No. l health priority, and Dr. Robert Windom, an Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, took issue with the report, saying that "there has been a conscientious effort to do a good job." The Public Health Service spent $244 million on research and other programs related to AIDS in the 1986 fiscal year.
The academy, considered the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, agreed for the most part with Public Health Service projections but drew a somewhat bleaker picture. It said at least a quarter and perhaps more than half of those infected with the AIDS virus - a group now estimated at 1 to 1.5 million -could develop the disease within 10 years.
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