From: repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler)
Subject: Women and AIDS (Was, for some strange reason, Re: All feminists are lesbian man-haters)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 02:10:47 GMT

In article <1992Jul27.234020.10840@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:

>This is only rememberd-from-the-newspaper-quality information, but the high
>rate of increase in infection of women, though true, only meant that they
>were on their way to catching up with men.
>
>Men were still at something like 10X the risk of infection of women.   It
>will take quite a while for women to catch up.  It was like 100,000 male
>victims in one year increased to 110,000, the next year, while in the same
>two years 10,000 women victims increased to 15,000 - the rate of increase for
>men was 10%, and for women it was 15%. [These weren't the actual figures, but
>there was about a 10X difference between men and women.]
>
>If anyone has the actual figues with appropriate sources I'd be
>interested in the data, but I want to point out that looking only at 'rate of
>increase' could easily be *very* misleading, and my impression from said
>newspaper article was that this was *exactly* the situation with AIDS.

I work in a support position at an outpatient AIDS Clinic in the county 
hospital in Oakland, California.  We treat people with AIDS and people who
have been infected with HIV but have not yet developed full-blown AIDS.
About 20% of our patients are women.  According to the county health de-
partment, this is a pretty accurate reflection of the proportion of women 
infected with HIV in Alameda County.

I also have some data here from the CDC HIV/AIDS monthly report for April,
1992.  According to this report, slightly over 10% of the adult/adolescent
cases of AIDS reported in the U.S. to date have been in women.  However, 
during March, 1991 - April, 1992 about 12.6% of the AIDS cases reported
were in women.  This is about 1 in 8 cases.  Remember, though, this is 
the number of AIDS cases reported to the CDC.  People whose cases are being 
reported now were probably infected at least five years ago.  In addition,
as I noted in an earlier post, the CDC definition of AIDS doesn't recognize
that the disease manifests differently in women than in men, so that women
are less likely to be officially diagnosed with AIDS even if they are HIV 
positive and dying.

According to the CDC, the women whose AIDS cases have been reported to date
were most likely to have been infected through injection drug use (50%) or 
sexual contact with an injection drug user (over 20%).  Transmission through
sexual contact with a bisexual male was only the case in fewer than 5%.

/Janet

P.S.  As I said, I work at the County Hospital.  We treat people who don't
have the money to go anywhere else.  Of the two doctors, two mid-level
practitioners, and four nurses who work in the clinic close to full-time,
only one (a nurse) is male.  I've noticed that women seem to predominate
in services to poor and indigent people with HIV in the East Bay.  If
AIDS is still predominantly a male disease, then why aren't there more
men involved in taking care of people with AIDS?
-- 
Internet: repnomar@leland.stanford.edu // GEnie: J.LAFLER
"Turnips care deeply about many things," remarked Rush, appearing suddenly. 
"Turnips are strongly emotional vegetables...."