THE FACTS OF DEATH

Ignorance About AIDS Is Shocking; Education Must Continue Until The Nature
Of The Threat Is Clear

THE sense of urgency that once surrounded the fight against AIDS in this
country has diminished. As researchers created life-extending treatments,
as government agreed to pay billions of dollars to cover the cost of those
treatments and as the face of the stereotypical sufferer changed -- from a
middle-class gay white man to a poor drug addict of color -- the disease
became part of the background noise of issues that show up in the science
briefs of newspapers instead of the front page.

A disturbing report from the international AIDS conference in Barcelona put
the issue back on the front page this week. Most young gay and bisexual men
in this country who have the human immunodeficiency virus that leads to
AIDS don't even know they're infected -- and the rate of ignorance is a
stunning 90 percent among African-Americans in that high-risk group. (The
numbers were 70 percent for Hispanics and 60 percent for whites.) This
ignorance, along with the increasing spread of AIDS through heterosexual
transmission, shows that this menace to public health is still a mystery to
too many people. In a country where practically everyone enjoys literacy
and access to scientific information, this level of ignorance and denial is
shocking.

That the news from other countries is far worse -- particularly the
devastation in sub-Saharan Africa as AIDS destroys economies along with
lives -- shouldn't blind us to the facts. AIDS is still a death sentence,
and the virus continues to develop resistance to every drug science
creates. The vast majority of Americans aren't in the high risk group, but
that doesn't make anyone safe. A reservoir of deadly infection in any group
is a threat to all of us.

The sense of urgency in fighting AIDS must be revived. We must overcome our
squeamishness about sex and our contempt for drug users, and educate
everyone over the age of 5 about the nature of this threat. Our habitual
complacency and prudishness put us all in the high risk group.