Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 13, 1993 TAG: 9302130198
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JESSICA MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
AIDS PREDICTION DISPUTED
Western Virginia AIDS activists are upset by a federal report released last week that concluded the AIDS epidemic would have little permanent effect on individuals in our society.The report claimed that on a national level, the impact of AIDS "will `disappear' not because it has been eliminated, but because those who continue to be affected by it are socially invisible."
But Keith Merkey, the Education/Outreach Coordinator of the AIDS Council of Western Virginia, said people infected with HIV are not invisible. "These people are part of our society, and they have families and friends that are part of society. They will affect the nation's health care and economic policies."
Health Department nurse Lee Radecke, the AIDS program coordinator for the Roanoke and Allegheny health districts, also disputed some of the report's assertions.
Radecke, who said she had not read the report in its entirety, disagreed with the claim that AIDS is found in "marginalized" population groups.
The number of heterosexuals with AIDS is growing, especially since a new definition of AIDS includes cervical cancer in women with HIV. "Heterosexual contraction of the AIDS virus is continuing to grow, and heterosexuals cannot be accurately defined as being a `marginal' population," Radecke said.
Many heterosexuals still think they are immune to AIDS, but Radecke said that is inaccurate. "We [Americans] perceived AIDS to be a homosexual disease, but it never has been and it certainly is not now," said Radecke.
Dr. Charles Schleupner, a member of the AIDS Medical Advisory Committee to the state Board of Health, said the increase in heterosexual transmission in the Roanoke Valley is connected with intravenous drug use. "The popularity of cocaine, and its reputation for increasing sexual pleasure, has been a contributing factor to the increase of HIV through heterosexuals."
According to Bill Harrison, public relations specialist with the AIDS program in the Virginia Department of Health, HIV is almost three times as common in men as in women; twice as many blacks as whites are infected; and the most frequent means of transmission is men having sexual relations with men. That's based on the number of HIV infections in the state since July 1989.
Ten times as many men as women have been diagnosed with AIDS in Virginia since 1985, Harrison said.
Although statistics show that men who have sex with other men are the highest risk group, there are a wider variety of people being tested for HIV than ever before. "Anyone who's sexually active, whether it's trading sex for drugs or meeting people at a bar, needs to be counseled and tested for AIDS," Radecke said.
In 1990, the Roanoke clinic tested 578 people; in 1991 it tested 820; in 1992 it tested 1,339. And in the five days in 1993 the clinic has had HIV screening, it has tested more than 300 people.
Currently, 44 percent of the people tested are women, 16 percent are black, and there is a dramatic rise in the number of young heterosexuals being tested. This is a shift from when the clinic opened in 1985 when almost exclusively gay men were being tested, Radecke said on a local radio talk show this week.
She also disagrees with the report's claim that "many geographical areas and strata of the population are virtually untouched by the epidemic."
Radecke said that claim is untrue; regardless of where you live "if you participate in behaviors that transmit the virus, it most definitely puts you at risk."
Despite the spread of AIDS, however, state funding for the AIDS Council of Western Virginia was cut this year, Merkey said.
Anonymous AIDS testing is available every Monday from 3 to 6 p.m. at the city Health Department's main office, 515 Eighth St. S.W. in Roanoke.