Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Wednesday, 20 November 1996.
Patricia Zengerle
William Darrow, a professor at Florida International University in Miami who was a pioneer AIDS researcher at the Centers for Disease Control in the early 1980s, closely studied gay man living in the southern end of Miami Beach, an area with a high proportion of homosexuals.
Of 87 men 18 to 29 years old enrolled in the study through October, 16.1 percent were infected with the AIDS virus vs. a 38.6 percent rate among those aged 30 and older.
Darrow presented his research at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in New York Wednesday.
"The problem in South Beach is just as bad as it is in the well-noted areas surrounding the Castro District of San Francisco," Darrow said, referring to a section of the California city with a large gay population.
But, he said in a telephone interview, the patterns of infection and high-risk activity in South Beach -- a popular vacation spot gay men call "Fantasy Island" -- were sharply different than in other sections of the country.
Elsewhere, studies have consistently shown that young gay and bisexual men are at greater risk of HIV infection than older men, who have seen many friends and lovers die of AIDS.
But in South Beach, not only were more older men infected, but more older men than young men said they recently had engaged in high-risk sexual practices.
"It's a very transient population ... People come and they get caught up in the holiday mood," Darrow said.
In South Beach, 72.4 percent of men aged 18 to 29 and 78.6 percent of men aged 30 and older said they had engaged in unprotected anal intercourse in the last year. In contrast, figures for gay and bisexual men interviewed in a 1994 San Francisco study were 43.6 percent and 18.0 percent, respectively.
"Gay and bisexual men have gotten all the messages that we want them to get, but they still are engaging in high levels of risk," Darrow said.
He said positive news about new AIDS treatments could be contributing to the impression the disease is conquerable.
"Now maybe they are more optimistic, that some drug is going to come along, a magic bullet," Darrow said. "That worries us, because we think that it's inadvisable."
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