BETTER AIDS PREVENTION CAN CLOSE HEALTH GAP

To the Editor: Your Jan. 26 news article on the disparity between the
health of black and white Americans neglected to mention AIDS. The 1995
death rate from AIDS for blacks (51.7 per 100,000) was more than three
times higher than the death rate for all people (16.4 per 100,000).

The racial differential between blacks and all people is higher for AIDS
than it is for the major illnesses you discuss, including diabetes, stroke,
heart disease and cancer.

Half of all new H.I.V. cases are drug-related and could therefore be
controlled if the Federal and state governments would follow the carefully
researched findings of their own scientists: that making sterile needles
available is essential to slowing the spread of H.I.V. through dirty
needles and does not increase drug use.

The Government has failed to make AIDS prevention money available for
clean- needle programs. Many state laws (including those in New York and
New Jersey) prohibit people who inject drugs from buying their own sterile
needles at pharmacies.

Dawn Day
Princeton, NJ., Jan. 28, 1998
The writer is director of the Dogwood Center, a social policy group.