United Press International - Tuesday, 3 October 2000
Ed Susman

Dr. David Satcher also urged that efforts be undertaken to fight the stigmatization and discrimination associated with the disease.

Satcher called for high school administrators to recognize anti-AIDS efforts that rely on abstinence-only policies are not effective in reaching their students.

More than 54 percent of all high school students are sexually active, but 40 percent of them do not use condoms when engaging in sex.

At the annual meeting of the United States Conference on AIDS, Satcher said that for the past four years, the number of new infections has remained around 40,000 a year -- lower than the 1980s and early 1990s, he said.

New figures show that HIV infection and AIDS continue to make inroads among young women and among minority populations, particularly among African Americans and Hispanics.

"African Americans, who make up 12 percent of the population, accounted for over 50 percent of the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections and 48 percent of the total cases reported," Satcher said. "Latinos who make up 11 percent of the population, accounted for an estimated 19 percent of new HIV infections," he added, "as well as 19 percent of the total AIDS cases reported."

People with HIV infection may not show any symptoms of the disease; people who have AIDS are HIV-infected and have exhibited disease symptoms.

Satcher said that data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate HIV infections among Asian Americans and Native Americans are increasing, although the percentage of infected people in these groups is still lower than in the general population. He added, however, that cultural barriers and instances of inconsistent reporting may make these numbers unreliable.

Satcher also noted that 78 percent of new HIV infections in women occurred among African American and Latino women.

Satcher highlighted the Crisis Response Team as one program which offers technical assistance to cities whose minority communities are hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The CRT is working in 13 cities, including Atlanta.

A second program, The Leadership Campaign on AIDS, works with communities of color to increase HIV/AIDS knowledge, and awareness. This organization also strives to address the stigma and discrimination associated with AIDS that often are roadblocks to treatment and prevention programs.

Satcher told United Press International that these leadership campaigns will use teenagers as peer advocates. "Peers have been shown to be successful in bringing the health message to others in smoking cessation and other activities," he said.

"I favor abstinence for young people," Satcher said, but he criticized school programs that won't even discuss condom use in favor of abstinence measures. Those measures have been proven ineffective in scientific studies while messages that discuss condom use have been proven useful in reducing sexually transmitted diseases, often a measure of success against HIV.

Satcher said that funds are available for most schools in the US to teach safe sex, but the government has no control over the curriculum of those schools.

"We could remove those funds from schools that do not follow science-based programs," said Dr. Eric Goosby, director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy at the Department of Health and Human Services, "but we prefer not to be heavy-handed and hope that by keeping these schools at the table they will come to appreciate the need for broadening their sex education messages."
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