University Daily Kansan, June 17, 1983
Page 3
AIDs could spread to Lawrence, officials say
By MELISSA BAUMAN Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Lawrence students and residents may not have to worry about contracting AIDS — acquired immune deficiency syndrome — a disease that attacks the body's immunity to disease. But the possibility exists.
"People in general do not have to be worried about AIDS unless they're having sexual contacts with someone with AIDS." Douglas Gardner, a physician in the department of clinical immunology and rheumatology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, said yesterday.
GARDNER SAID, however, that people who come in contact with the blood by-products of someone who has AIDS, such as people working in hospitals and blood banks, could contract the disease.
He said that two people with AIDS had been treated at the Med Center and that other cases had been reported at Kansas City hospitals.
He also said that there are several patients in the Med Center's infectious department.
symptoms but have not been diagnosed as having the disease.
"IT'S HARD TO know the true incidence here in Kansas City because there are these people developing these symptoms, but they may not seek
Gardner said that homosexuals tended to contract many sexually transmitted diseases and that in some cases they did not take the symptoms of the disease seriously or did not know what the symptoms were.
Gardner said that Lawrence homosexuals traveling to Kansas City or other places with a history of AIDS must treat the disease and bring it to Lawrence.
Raymond Schwegler, acting chief of staff at Watkins Memorial Hospital, also said that although there had been no reported cases at Watkins, the possibility of AIDS developing in Lawrence did exist.
He said that because KU had such a large number of out-of-state students, the fall semester could bring new or returning students who had contracted
of AIDS had been reported on the coasts.
The Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, supports Schwegler's statement. CDC statistics show that certain percentages of AIDS cases than others.
Of the 1,552 reported cases nationwide, New York state has 751, 986 of which are in New York City. California has 329 cases, 157 of which are in San Francisco and 94 of which are in Los Angeles. In 110 reported cases, Florida has 93
F. J. Walker, editor of Alternate News, a Kansas City publication that prints news for the gay community, said that many homosexuals were becoming more aware of AIDS and that the federal agency's lifestyle to try to avoid the disease
"THE AREA IS so laid back that
they don't think it can happen to them."
"They don't think it can happen to them."
He said, however, that many homosexuals still were not aware of the
People should be aware of the early symptoms of AIDS, Walker said. Symptoms include enlarged lymph glands; fever; diarrhea; weight loss; a
dry, hacking cough; feeling tired and
purple; spots on the skin, in
the hair.
The suspicion that AIDS can be transmitted through blood products has made some blood banks a little wary of their donors.
Many blood banks, Gardner said, have barred homosexuals from giving blood.
Gardner said many blood banks were screening their donors, a significant number of whom were homosexual, to prevent transmission of the disease through transfusions and blood by-products. This means questioning potential donors about sexual preference and lifestyle, he said.
"IT APPEARS THAT some patients in California that were studied may have been exposed up to two years before they were diagnosed," Gardner said, but he said that refusing all equal blood donors was too extreme.
Gardner said that the general public often overreacted because of a poor perception of how the disease was transmitted.
"It's a big question, Gays with AIDS.
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While walking through Holcom Park the other night, I came upon a spirited volleyball game which defied classification. After first dismissing it as some avant-garde undertaking not worthy of my examination because neither team practiced sexual discrimination. I became downright suspicious when several minutes of playing time passed uninterrupted by any profane exhortations or on-the-court histiionics. Indeed, the participants seemed to be...well...having fun, a slovenly practice that is unacceptable in both the amateur and professional athletic domains.
I wondered if these misguided but affable drones realized that, just as in the "real world" the only people who work are those whose efforts are financially rewarded, so in the athletic world the only people who play are those amateurs and professionals whose efforts are financially rewarded with, respectively, athletic scholarships and salaries.
Frequently I see good-natured folk like these who, through their creation of a form of athletic participation which is neither amateur nor professional, are engaged in a rebellion they are fated to lose. When such contests are prohibited by the bumbling bureaucracies which are forever accumulating power in amateur and professional athletics, most people will probably realize that even benign rebels just waste resources.
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Gardner also said that many people with AIDS have not seen a doctor because the symptoms have not yet become apparent.
Gardner said the first symptoms of AIDs are low-grade fever, a sore throat and diarrhea. The full-blown disease brings severe infection, skin malignancy and other maladies. These spread rapidly into internal organs.
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Gardner said that the Med Center was not doing any in-depth research of AIDs because the research would require a large patient population. He also said the Med Center was not given enough money to finance the research.
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HE SAID, HOWEVER, that the government was releasing money for research in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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are being fired and treated like lepers," he said.
Studies have shown that the most frequent carriers of AIDS are homosexuals or bisexuals, hemophiliacs, Haitians and intravenous drug users. Mothers with AIDS can also transmit the disease to their unborn children.
"I think that we're going to find the answer to this within the next year — probably virus. Right now the biggest threat is it, then it and how to treat it." Gardner said.
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