Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc.; Thursday December 4, 6:48 pm EST
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

The nationwide survey of more than 1,200 adults, done for the Kaiser Family Foundation, also found that people think AIDS is one of the two top major health problems facing the nation today.

"With all the attention to the new drugs in the media and elsewhere, does the public think the HIV epidemic is over? Has public concern waned? asked Drew Altman, president of the foundation. "The answer is no."

"They feel urgency, without complacency and without hysteria," Tim Westmoreland of Georgetown University Medical School and a senior adviser on HIV to the Kaiser Family Foundation, told a news conference.

"They know about AIDS...they are comfortable with AIDS."

Fifty-one percent of the adults polled in the random telephone survey in September and October said they thought the federal government was spending too little on AIDS programs. Thirty-two percent said the right amount, and 8 percent said too much was being spent.

"Pretty strong, I think," commented Dr. Sophia Chang, director of the HIV program at the foundation.

The survey, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, had a margin of error of three percentage points.

Asked if the government should spend more to help poor people with HIV pay for drugs, 73 percent agreed and only 20 percent said people should pay for their own drugs no matter what their income.

Nearly everyone, 95 percent, said money should be spent on AIDS education and prevention and 47 percent wanted most research dollars to go toward a vaccine.

Most people strongly supported AIDS education in schools, advertisements for condoms, even on network television, and most favored government funding of needle exchange programs -- a controversial issue. The federal government has declined to fund such programs, fearing it would show tacit support for illegal drug use.

"This is not nearly the third rail that politicians say it is," Westmoreland said. "The public is not terrified of it."

They were asked what they thought the most urgent health problem facing the nation today was, and were not given any choices but rather had to come up with an original answer. Thirty-eight percent said AIDS, another 38 percent said cancer, while 21 percent said access to or cost of health insurance was the most urgent problem.

Of those surveyed, 16 percent said heart disease, 5 percent drugs and 3 percent smoking was the most pressing health problem in the country.

Fifty two percent of those polled thought the country was making progress against AIDS, compared to 23 percent in 1994. Only 27 percent thought efforts to fight the disease were losing ground, compared to 49 percent in 1994.

Nearly everyone, 96 percent, knew AIDS could be spread through sexual intercourse and 91 percent knew a pregnant woman could give it to her baby. Eighty-six percent were aware there was no cure, although the same percentage knew about drugs that fight the infection, and 82 percent knew no vaccine existed.

"People get it, and that's unusual -- we don't usually see that in these kinds of surveys," Altman said.

"We are also finding that Americans are starting to learn how to live with AIDS," Chang said.

Thirty-five percent said they knew someone who had AIDS or HIV or who had died of it, compared to 2 percent in 1983 and 39 percent in 1995. Two thirds said they would be very or somewhat comfortable working with someone who had AIDS.

Although most people still don't get tested -- only 38 percent ever have been -- they are worried about their children. Fifty-two percent of parents surveyed said they were "very concerned" about their children becoming infected.

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