Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle (SF); Tuesday, November 19, 1991
Elaine Herscher, Chronicle Staff Writer
An article in yesterday's Chronicle on a campaign to educate young gay and bisexual men about the transmission of AIDS incorrectly reported the age of John Fleming, a member of the Mayor's Youth Forum. Fleming is 16 years old.
TEXT:
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation began its most ambitious education campaign yesterday, one designed to stem the "extremely frightening" wave of unsafe sex among young gay and bisexual men.
The campaign, which includes posters in 50 bus shelters throughout the city, was in response to a San Francisco Department of Public Health survey earlier this year.
The survey found that gay and bisexual men between the ages of 17 and 19 were twice as likely to engage in unsafe sex as men 29 or older, and that 30 percent of the youths practiced unprotected anal intercourse, a major route of infection.
Also alarming to health experts were the numbers of young men already infected with the virus that causes AIDS: 14 percent of gay and bisexual men 17 to 19 years old; 22 percent of young black gay men; and 14 percent of young Latino men.
"The risk among that population was staggering and extremely frightening to us," said Pat Christen, the AIDS Foundation's executive director.
The foundation's $50,000 "Reinforce Your Love" campaign, paid for in part by the health department, includes a bus shelter poster campaign in English, Spanish and Filipino showing two youths embracing and holding a condom. There will also be ads in youth-oriented publications, T-shirt giveaways and other events in high schools aimed at young gay and bisexual men of all races.
"Young gay and bisexual men have never before been targeted for a campaign of this magnitude," said John Wilhite, the campaign's youth coordinator.
Health department director Ray Baxter said the city and the AIDS agencies have done a good job distributing information and encouraging young men at risk to be HIV tested. "People are getting tested," Baxter said, "but we are not confident that these people are changing their behavior."
John Fleming, a 22-year-old member of the Mayor's Youth Forum, said his peers are likely to respond to the campaign because the young men in the posters "are not GQ models -- they're someone youth can relate to."
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