Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 24, 1991 TAG: 9103240142
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"The conventional wisdom is that AIDS is an old, tired story about which people would rather not hear," said June Osborn, dean of the school of public health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.
In fact, the fatal disease has gained a foothold almost everywhere, Osborn said.
"There is no country in the world that does not have its seminal dose of HIV," which is the AIDS virus, Osborn told the sparse crowd at Virginia Tech's Donaldson Brown Center Auditorium. "We must learn to cope, if not for our own sake, then for our children's children."
Osborn, who is also chairwoman of President Bush's AIDS Commission, was one of nine speakers at the two-day president's symposium at Virginia Tech. Titled "AIDS: The Modern Plague," the event drew authorities on AIDS from universities and the medical and health-care professions to trade notes on the now-famous disease, identified just a decade ago.
Since its discovery in the early 1980s, the HIV virus has infected millions of people around the world and threatens to get worse before it gets better, experts here said.
Some 167,803 cases of AIDS have been diagnosed in the United States, with 106,361 deaths, according to recent figures from the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
The number of people infected with the HIV virus who have not yet developed full-blown AIDS is believed to be much higher.
"I do not think AIDS will lead to the extinction of humanity," said speaker Bruce Levin of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass.
But Levin said the disease could lead to population downturns in some parts of the world.
Levin also said there seems little short-term prospect for a vaccine.
"It is a very, very curious disease. It is not a very virulent disease," said the zoology professor, noting the AIDS virus takes a long time to destroy its victim's immune system.
On the other hand, Levin called the number of deaths that have resulted from the AIDS virus "extraordinary in terms of infectious diseases. . . . There really is no evidence the person diagnosed HIV positive will be able to recover."
Levin was skeptical the human body will be able to develop defenses on its own to counter AIDS anytime soon.
He also scoffed at the idea the AIDS virus eventually will become less deadly, on the theory a successful parasite doesn't harm its host organism.
"Wishful thinking is not a bad thing. It just does not make for good science," he said.
He said some diseases - malaria, for one - have been around a long time and remain harmful. "In practice, there's no reason to believe the direction of evolution will be mutualism."
Levin was not aware he knew an AIDS victim himself until finding out a few weeks ago that a former colleague had died of AIDS, "alone, without telling anyone. That really provoked me," he said.
Osborn, meanwhile, pleaded for compassion for people with AIDS. "Too often the war seems to have been on the people with HIV and not on the virus," she said.
Osborn also called for a war on drugs that will help drug users end their addictions once and for all. The sharing of needles to inject drugs, she said, has "flash-fire potential" to spread AIDS.
"Well-meaning people - including me in earlier years - tend to think of drug users as beyond the pale," she said. "There are many who would like to be free of drugs and the risk of AIDS. And yet we have blocked their way by failing to provide treatment for their addiction."
Osborn spoke of the "endless hurricane of problems" associated with treating AIDS patients. Even if no new cases were diagnosed, she said, "our work would be cut out for us for 10 years to come."
She estimated some 200,000 people will die of AIDS over the next two years, and said drug use is an emerging factor in transmission of the disease. The virus also is increasingly infecting women, she said.
Some 6 percent of AIDS victims are now heterosexual, she said, and the figure is rising. "I fail to see the wisdom of waiting until AIDS is rampant among heterosexuals before we decide to care.
"We know what we need to know to tell people how to prevent this virus - and there will never be a better vaccine," Osborn said.
The use of condoms, she said, while not fail-safe, can reduce the chance of transmitting the virus tenfold.
Other speakers at the AIDS symposium included Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute; Robert St. John of the Department of Health and Human Services; Robert Selander of Pennsylvania State University; Harold Osborn of Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center, Bronx, N.Y.; David Slobodkin of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas; Joseph Falkinham of Virginia Tech; and Lawrence Gostin of the American Society of Law and Medicine.
by CNB