University Daily Kansan / Monday, August 27, 1990
7b
Rural U.S. lacks AIDS education
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An "epidemic of fear and bigotry" prevents many rural Americans infected with the AIDS virus from getting needed care, the National Commission on Aids reported Aug. 14.
The commission also stated that too few minorities, women and children are included in experimental drug testing and that too many physicians and dentists still will not treat people with AIDS.
"We have to do much better to educate everybody to this durable new threat (of AIDS) in our environment," said June Osborn, chairperson of the 15-member commission of the Congress and the White House.
The report was the commission's third, and as with the earlier two, the panel emphasized the urgency of the situation and called for swift action.
"We're very late in responding to a massive problem, but getting later makes no sense at all," said Osborn, dean of the University of Michigan.
School of Public Health.
The report stated that "in rural America, there is an epidemic of fear and bigotry, fanned by the absence of education and knowledge," surrounding AIDS and the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, that the disease.
Panel members, who earlier this year went to Georgia and Texas to learn about the impact of AIDS, said education about the disease was "virtually nonexistent and desperately needed in rural communities."
The report described the experiences of people who had been rejected by their church, lost their jobs and were evicted from their apartments because of their AIDS infection.
'Ignorance and misinformation are seriously hampering, if not crippling efforts to treat" rural Americans with AIDS. it stated.
The report recognized federal efforts to include more minorities in government-financed clinical trials, but said, "We can and must do
stacks and Hispanics account for 43 percent of all AIDS cases, but they make up only 23 percent of clinical trial participants, the report stated.
better."
Children and women of child-bearing age usually have been excluded from clinical trials, but the panel said that must change.
The report also said the National Institutes of Health had moved too slowly to find drugs to manage opportunistic infections, which are the cause of death for fewer patients. The patient NOH should be screened with a higher priority while continuing work on drugs that act on the AIDS virus.
"Turning to health-care personnel, the commission said it "heard repeatedly about a serious shortage of medical workers with HIV infection and AIDS."
The report related the experiences of one witness who said the only two dentists in his community who would treat him were from whom he was infected with HIV
Too many physicians also are refusing to see AIDS patients, according to the report, and like many dentists, they appear to be unaware that the virus is spread through saliva and fluids mostly through sex or needle-sharing by intravenous drug users—not casual contact.
The commission also recommended creation of "a comprehensive community-based primary health care system, supported by adequate financing and reimbursement." It is essential for the care and treatment of all people." not just those with AIDS, the panel reported.
However, the panel did not outline the specifics of such a system.
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