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Date:         Mon, 13 Apr 1992 14:32:44 EDT
 <WORDS-L%UGA.bitnet@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU>
From:         3669ref%PRIME.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
Subject:      Re: AIDS & Ashe

LTC. Robert Redfield, M.D. - Walter Reed Army Inst. of Research. -
"Condoms are not safe, they're dangerous. Sex with a condom with an
infected person is not protected. It's very unprotected. It's very, very
dangerous. "

Dr. Lorraine Day, M.D. - Orthopedic Surgeon. - "Even former Surgeon
General Koop  has said 'Let's pass out condoms. Let's teach kids how to
have safe sex.' Well there is no safe sex, and we must tell our children
the truth."

Stanley Monteith, M.D. - Orthopedic Surgeon. - "If you want to play
Russian Roulette in the lottery of death, a lottery where there is no
winners, only losers, use a condom. Be sure to use a condom because it
gives you some degree of protection. But understand there's about a 1% a
month failure rate, probably about 15% failure rate a year with a 100%
fatal disease. Do you really want to take that chance and risk your life,
your entire future for a moments pleasure? If you have any intelligence,
you won't do it."

    The CDC that keeps track of these statistics, says that there
are 200,000 people in this country who have AIDS. What they don't tell
you is, that is the terminal state of the infection. In other words,
those are the people who are in their last year or two of life. The
people who are infected with HIV, who have not gotten sick yet, are many,
many times more.
    From the time that you get infected, until you get sick, can be as
long as 10-12 years. You look healthy, you act healthy, and if you do not
get tested, you don't even know that you have the disease, and you can
transmit it during all those 10 to 12 years to any of your sexual
partners, or by giving blood, or anyone who contacts your body fluids.

    So we're keeping the numbers low by only talking about the people who
have AIDS. The CDC says there are about 1 million people infected with
HIV in America. But they haven't changed that statistic in 4 years. They
have had the same number, 1 million, for 4 years. That means nobody else
has gotten infected with this disease. Others, including the General
Accounting Office of the government, another governmental agency, says
that the CDC has under estimated by at least 33%. And then a think tank,
the Hudson Institute says that there are many more infected than that, in
fact some estimates of other agencies feel that right now there are
between 3 and 7 million infected with HIV infection in this country.

    All those people will eventually get AIDS and die. But all of them
right now are contagious through their blood and body fluids to other
individuals. The CDC estimates that only 14% of the people who are HIV
infected know that they are HIV infected. If we had routine wide spread
testing we would be able to identify to the public health department the
people who have this disease and we would be able to get this epidemic
under control. We don't have that much time.

              Robert E. Fitzgerald  --  University of Virginia
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