THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 28, 1995 TAG: 9510270009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 29 lines
The photo caption on ``Living with AIDS'' (Daily Break, Oct. 20) will do more harm than good in the fight against AIDS. Any sex outside of marriage puts you at risk for contracting AIDS. Period. Condom or no condom.
AIDS is a disease that is passed along (99.9 percent of the time) by lifestyle choices. I appreciated Holly's realization of that and applaud her. Your photo caption (``Because she was not in any of the high-risk groups, Holly was shocked by her diagnosis'') went in the opposite direction of Holly's final point and made it appear that Holly now has AIDS through no actions of her own.
AIDS patients need all the compassion and support we can provide them. That being said, I hope any individual reading your paper who is not clear on the facts of AIDS transmission realizes that the easiest way to avoid this disease is to not do intravenous drugs and to save all sexual activity for a monogomous lifetime marriage.
MERCEDES WELCH
Norfolk, Oct. 20, 1995 by CNB