Pubdate: Tue, 06 Feb 2007 Source: Long Beach Press-Telegram (CA) Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group Contact: http://www.presstelegram.com/writealetter Website: http://www.ptconnect.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/244 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) AIDS REMAINS A THREAT Per Capita Cases In L.B. Are Double L.A. County's Average There is a tendency to shrug off AIDS as something out of the 1990s, like flannel shirts. Wondrous new drugs have improved the quality of life for those infected but the uninformed incorrectly assume that the disease is as "manageable" as high blood pressure or diabetes. That isn't the case. AIDS still kills. The drugs spark many miracles but they also make some users feel sick and nauseated. Some patients don't respond. Others can't stick to the pill schedules. AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence but it remains a scourge in Long Beach, where large swaths of the population are at risk for infection. Much of the focus in town is on the highly respected treatment options at St. Mary Medical Center and other top-shelf programs, but prevention shouldn't take a back seat since it remains the best option for those at risk. This is why we commend the Long Beach Health and Human Services Department and Comprehensive HIV Planning Group for making the City Council and the community aware that the city's rate of infection is nearly twice as high as the county's and more than double the state's. Not only is the Health Department focused on increasing funding for treatment options but officials do an excellent job of promoting prevention and testing citywide. The gay community is aware of the threat, since men who sleep with men still make up the largest cohort of infections, about 45 percent. But many younger gay men, who haven't seen their friends die like those in earlier generations, aren't as careful as their predecessors. They need a reminder. So do heterosexuals. No one should consider AIDS "a gay disease." More than half of the new HIV infections aren't in gay men. Rates of infection are up for women and black men, two groups the general public does not traditionally associate with the disease (health professionals have been noting those trends for years). The poor, former prison inmates, drug users and some minorities represent risk groups. The young are also susceptible. Not surprisingly, there is a connection between HIV infection and crystal methamphetamine use. This deadly relationship, which the Press-Telegram examined in its award-winning "Meth Menace" series, is a reminder of the importance of treating drug addiction like any other disease since it also "infects" communities like any public health emergency. Long Beach's rate of new AIDS cases, it has been pointed out, has been higher than the norm for years, and the new data don't suggest a major spike. But the figures are a reminder, one that many need to hear, that AIDS didn't disappear with the headlines. So with apologies to the 1990s, here's an old message that needs replaying for the sexually active: Get yourself tested, limit your partners, use condoms or abstain from sex outside of committed relationships. Parents: Talk with your children about abstinence, condoms, drug use and, most of all, self-respect. AIDS didn't go the way of those flannels, even if the prevention messages did. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman