Public health officials say ads alone don't cause unsafe behavior but can feed a perception that AIDS is no longer the threat it once was. But we have to be careful in prevention not to inadvertently minimize the seriousness of what is a lifelong, incurable infection. So-called treatment optimism, particularly among young men who don't recall the epidemic's devastating early years in the 1980s and early 1990s, is one factor in the rise of risky sexual behavior, experts say. Last year, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to report a rise in new HIV infections after years of stable or declining rates. There's no statistical evidence that rates are rising anywhere else, but other cities have reported outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea and drops in condom use among HIV-infected gay men.
Some activists say the ad flap drains energy from bigger prevention issues.
It's fueled by alcoholism, by drugs, by the bars, by the phone lines and Internet cruising. Don't look for drug ads to show people wearing adult diapers or the disfiguring effects of lipodystrophy, he says. There's got to be a reality check there.