Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, September 30, 1992
The University of California at Davis carried out the study to determine the level of human immunodeficiency virus infection among Sacramento's drug-injecting population. HIV can lead to carriers contracting acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Neil Flynn, the university's associate professor of clinical internal medicine, said the results of the study, financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, shocked even the researchers.
"Out of 546 injection drug abusers tested, 13 percent of the amphetamine users and 4 percent of the heroin users already test positive for the HIV virus," Flynn said in a statement. "We expected to find one-third of this rate."
The university research team said the results of the study revealed that drug abusers in the city "are on the verge of an AIDS epidemic."
"We think it is a very short time before the virus spreads to the New York level of 60 to 70 percent (among drug abusers), perhaps one or two years," Flynn said. "This would triple or quadruple the number of people with HIV infection in Sacramento."
The university said health officials are particularly alarmed at the increasing infection rate among amphetamine users because they are considered a "bridge" to the heterosexual, non- drug-abusing population.
"Heroin users tend to stay within their group, but amphetamine users commonly are heterosexual and sexually active with non-drug-using people," Flynn said.
He said that once injection-drug users in sizable numbers got the AIDS virus, the illness would be "unstoppable among young, heterosexually active people -- teenagers and young adults."
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