From: nyxfer%panix.com@UMCVMB.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
Subject: NEWS:More Teens With AIDS/Govt Policy Disgrace
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@UMCVMB.missouri.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 21:56:15 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit


    MORE TEENS WITH AIDS--BUT GOV'T POLICY STILL `A DISGRACE'

                        By Leslie Feinberg

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited.)

AIDS activists responded to the latest alarming statistics by
saying the federal government's refusal to educate youths on the
grave dangers of AIDS transmission proves that, in reality, it is
neither pro-family nor pro-life.

According to a report released April 11 by the House Select
Committee on Children, Youth and Families, the number of teenagers
with AIDS in the U.S. has increased by more than 70 percent in the
past two years. African American youths account for 37 percent of
the cases and Latinos represent 19 percent.  The incidence of
teens who are HIV-antibody positive but not sick was not reported.

AIDS is now the sixth-leading cause of death among 15- to
24-year-olds. The statistics are skewed down by the fact that the
long incubation period masks how many people were teenagers when
they were originally infected.

What's the federal government's response? According to the House
committee "Denial of the problem at the federal level, where
leadership should be paramount, is a national disgrace."

Less than 5 percent of the federal AIDS budget, not counting
Medicaid, is allocated for programs, research or services that
benefit youths. The committee charged that existing federal
prevention efforts are encumbered by moralistic restrictions
against explicit or specific information about high-risk sexual
practices and the need to use condoms.

Condoms: a fact of life

Now, a television ad campaign slated to appeal to youth has been
canceled.

Youths won't be seeing a proposed commercial in which Whoopi
Goldberg tells them, "Ain't no making Whoopi without a condom."

Or the one where George Burns says: "I first started using condoms
when I was a young man. I think I was 72."

Or Ray Charles saying, "I wouldn't be seen without one." Or Bo
Jackson telling them, "Just use it!" as an announcer reminds
youths: "Condoms. They're a fact of life."

Instead, the federal Centers for Disease Control will channel the
government's $1.5 million "America Responds to AIDS" campaign into
humorless messages that never once mention essential words like
condom or sex.

The cancellation of these condom ads has enraged AIDS educators
inside and outside the CDC. Donald Francis, a former
epidemiologist with the federal agency, told his colleagues in his
retirement speech earlier this year, "The CDC has been forced to
give science a back seat to the political whims of extremists and
done so at great cost to the American people."

It's hard to imagine anyone defending the federal government's
reactionary position. But Assistant Secretary of Health and Human
Services James Mason tried. He told a news conference in March,
"When the goals of science collide with moral and ethical
judgment, there are certain times when science has to take a
time-out."

AIDS activists say those are definitely not words to live by.

                               ***

This article originally appeared in Workers World newspaper. A
10-week trial subscription is available for $2. A year's
subscription costs $15. Makes checks payable to Workers World, and
send to 46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010.Phone (212) 255-0352. You
may contact Workers World editors on NY Transfer or PeaceNet at
"workers."

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