
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 20, 1991                   TAG: 9104200152
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON                                LENGTH: Short

WOMEN WITH AIDS SAY THEY ARE OVERLOOKED

At a standing-room-only conference on women with AIDS many women said that they were overlooked by doctors who simply failed to check for AIDS because they thought it was unthinkable.

The five-day conference is being sponsored by the Fenway Community Health Center and 11 other health and women's groups.

"Back in 1984, '85, '86, gay men were treated horribly," said Keri Duran, 28, a former heroin addict who has tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. "That pales in comparison with what women face."

Women are so seldom accurately diagnosed with AIDS until so late that their survival from the date of diagnosis averages from 15 weeks to six months, health officials said. Men typically live two to three years from that point.

The agency projects that AIDS will be among the top five causes of death for women between the ages of 25 and 44 by 1993 if trends continue.

Despite AIDS' impact on women, critics say AIDS treatment, testing, education and prevention programs are designed primarily for men.

"Being invisible in the epidemic has made it all too easy to ignore the risk," said Gloria Weissman, deputy chief of the community research branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

by CNB