Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1988. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (SF) - FRIDAY November 4, 1988 Edition: FINAL Section: NEWS Page: A2 Word Count: 365
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
The continuing study focuses on more than 1,000 Castro-area men who volunteered four years ago to undergo confidential testing every six months.
Over that period, the rate of new infection by HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, has dropped more than 88 percent, according to Dr. Warren Winkelstein, who heads the research team at the UC School of Public Health in Berkeley. Intensive education programs have encouraged the young men in the study to modify their sexual practices in the interest of "safe sex," and the most likely cause of the decline has been the widespread abandonment of anal intercourse with multiple partners, Winkelstein said.
The UC group's report was published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Winkelstein noted in an interview yesterday that similar studies conducted at the San Francisco Health Department's city clinic as well as in other cities are beginning to show comparable results.
Even before the UC study began, estimates by epidemiologists were showing that between 1982 and 1984, the rate of new AIDS infections among San Francisco's gay and bisexual male population was running at 18 percent a year.
By 1985, the rate of new infections had dropped to 5.9 percent, according to Winkelstein's study. The following year the rate was 4.2 percent; by the first six months of 1987 it dropped to 1.7 percent, and by the end of last year the new infection rate had dropped once more - to less than 1 percent.
"This is the first time I know of when behavioral change has directly modified the course of an epidemic of a sexually transmitted disease," Winkelstein said.
He noted that even if Proposition 102, the AIDS reporting initiative, passes next week on election day, the men in the study who test positive will not have to be reported to health authorities.
The ballot measure would require doctors, hospitals, clinics and researchers to report the names of people suspected of being infected by the AIDS virus.
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