AIDS: Ten Years Later

Oh. I don't think any of us 10 years ago ever expected that we would see such a worldwide epidemic of such incredible proportions as we've seen today and we will see into the forseeable future. The epidemic has changed to the extent that we are now much more in communities of color. The vast majority of five patients in the other the lower socioeconomic classes are dying just as quickly and just as early and with his little treatment as everybody did back in 1984. I think that we're confronted with an increasing problem and a decreasing ability to spend public dollars to deal with it.

An estimated 1 million Americans are infected with the AIDS virus. More than 100000 have died of the disease no longer affecting only gave white males AIDS in the 90s a spreading fastest among people of color and women. Support for AIDS research and treatment once a priority show signs of diminishing. However there is growing hope that recent scientific advances soon may result in new medicines and treatments. Currently AZT is the only fully approved drug effective against the AIDS virus. Scientists predict that by combining AZT with other new drugs AIDS may become controllable. Dr. Mervyn Silverman is president of the American Foundation for AIDS research. And I forsee really with what we're doing now and how we'll I think we'll improve that in the not too distant future we will have some sort of combination of medicines or what have you which may vary for individual that they'll have to take on a daily basis and lead a

relatively normal life. They won't be cured just like they're not cured with diabetes but they can live a relatively normal life. An AIDS vaccine however remains an elusive goal. The AIDS virus changes structure so quickly it may be impossible for researchers to develop a vaccine that's 100 percent effective. Some limited preliminary vaccine trials are underway. But after a billion dollars in research scientists are uncertain if they will ever wipe out the AIDS virus completely. What science is gambling on is a new class of powerful anti-viral drugs that researchers hope may stop the AIDS virus from reproducing and those infected. And using techniques like genetic engineering. Researchers are also creating new drugs to knock out the infections associated with a does that lead to 90 percent of all deaths. The drugs include DTI and DTC proven to be more effective against AIDS when used in combination with AZT protease

inhibitors drugs which target specific parts of the AIDS virus to keep it from reproducing Fosse Karnit highly effective in the treatment of AIDS related retinitis which causes blindness. But the federal drug of. Rubles are long and complicated yet right activist. The Food and Drug Administration has speeded up the process. Not enough however for AIDS activists like Martin Delaney Laney has a project in forming a national AIDS patient advocacy and treatment Information Group. It's still wrong bet that we have to fight over each and every one of these drugs as they come about. It's still wrong that it takes drugs sometimes years to go from an initial laboratory finding before the first human testing even happens it's still wrong that even once these drugs have been proven and demonstrated to have value that everybody can get them. Persons with AIDS desperate for a cure now are seeking out drugs underground at buyers clubs like this one in San Francisco often at the urging of doctors like

Larry waits whose practice consists largely of persons infected with the AIDS virus. The buyers clubs which spring up in the mid 1980s import these drugs. For other countries act as an agent for the patient and get the drugs to them so that they can be treated now while patients and scientists search for a way to stop AIDS. The number of new AIDS cases is straining the nation's health care system. America's cities are especially hard pressed to meet the growing needs of poor people with AIDS. The clinic the outpatient facilities are being overburdened the support services that allow people to stay out of the hospitals are getting overburdened. And what that means is that everybody ends up funneling into the hospitals. Dr. Kathleen London and physicians assistant Beatrice Morrison head of the AIDS clinic at Highland Hospital in Oakland California. Highland is typical of county hospitals nationwide where AIDS workers report staffing shortages and increasing numbers

of charity AIDS cases. This clinic started about three years ago. So you start out with zero patients at three years ago. We increased by a hundred percent to 200 patients in the first year. And then we've increased by a hundred percent again while gays still account for the majority of cases. A dramatic shift is underway. The largest number of new AIDS cases are among women blacks and Hispanics and persons exposed to heterosexual contact. Those more than half are black women. Most have no health insurance and they don't have the wells of health support gays have in their community. The poor end up at county hospitals like Highland often alone in the late stages of their disease. Sometimes the last people are patients. Not a family. Not anyone else in your community that we're providers. That's a real that's. A growing number of Highlands AIDS cases are among addicts. In some eastern

cities. They make up half of all new AIDS cases. The gay issue is that most injection drug users have partners. Who are injection drug users and they're not using contraception and they're having babies and this is going further and further and further out from where. Beginning fresh start. Takes. A recent report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors paints a grim picture of AIDS in the inner cities. Most major cities say they cannot afford the cost of AIDS care on their own. All report medical staffing shortages inadequate facilities and insufficient money to pay for AIDS drugs. Dr. Sandra Hernandez heads the AIDS program in San Francisco where an estimated 3 percent of the population is infected with the AIDS virus. If we don't stop the spread of this epidemic I forsee a very dismal future up into into the next decade where HIV services and the range of needs that these

individuals have and that a city's going to try and respond to is going to be enormous. And we will fall significantly short. Projections are the cost of AIDS care nationwide will exceed 10 billion dollars by 1990 for. Funding for AIDS research has grown dramatically from less than six million dollars in 1980 to more than one billion dollars this year. But experts say it hasn't kept pace with the epidemic. Recently Congress passed the highly touted Ryan White Care bill providing emergency funding for areas hard hit by AIDS. Say the bill falls far short of what's needed to stop it. So they demonstrated recently at the summit the White House blaming the president for what they say is a lack of AIDS funding. We're seeing him and his administration being pushed by the conservatives so that we still don't have the education we still have

difficulty getting the funding. The it's very clear the Ryan White bill passed everyone put their name on it but when it came to putting the money on it there was certainly wasn't any push from the president. If the message is compassion I got it clear if the message is research I would say please talk to Doctor found she and others at the National Institute of Health who will tell you that we're doing pretty well in funding of research and we've got the best scientists in the world. And I think there's more optimism in this community now the scientific community than there ever has been activism. Even critics agree has produced results. Activists now advise the government's AIDS clinical trials. They're credited with speeding up approval of experimental AIDS drugs and they've gotten the government to revise the official definition of allowing more women to get these benefits. Until now an AIDS diagnosis meant having one or more like threatening infections. But women often show differences. I'm the man. And so technically I didn't have a.

Beginning January 1st. A person with AIDS will be anyone with a damaged immune system and fewer than 200 infection fighting T-cells is growing. Roberta Acton Berg is a San Francisco supervisor and women's advocate who lobbied for the wider definition of AIDS. It means that more people will be able to qualify presumptively for benefits because in fact they are disabled many will be entitled to experimental drug protocols for free in ways that they would not have been entitled to under the old definition. But experts say the new definition will double the number of cases without increasing AIDS funding by changing the definition they've increased the numbers so that almost a half a dozen or ten more cities now I think it is qualify for the Ryan White Care money. And increase the wind right. They didn't increase the money they just are now dividing it among the smaller among our larger number of people so everybody is getting

less money. Some say enough money is already going to AIDS advocates for diseases of the elderly and cancer want more money for their research. They say recent medical advances are evidence of current funding levels for AIDS research are sufficient. AIDS advocates disagree. We get this sense that there well there's the other the problems over well probably the level loss the number of new cases. When there's a vaccine may be around the corner and our projections may not have been as it may not be as high as we thought. And people have a sense this disease is over it isn't. First of all it's going to outlive all of us. And second of all right now we're seeing a tremendous number of people who were infected in the early 80s coming due now with their aids problems. And so we're putting in a tremendous burden on an already overstretched community based network and they can't continue to handle it unless the funds and the personnel and the volunteers are there and they're not. 10 years into the AIDS epidemic. Society seems to be suffering from AIDS

burnout. The phenomenon is well known to caregivers of the terminally ill who at some point in their deathwatch want to forget about the disease and focus on something new. One day everything seems to be OK the next minute. You know. You should get a rest. Everything's going to. Explode I was going. Just one AIDS advocates thought they were making progress in fighting the disease. Now they find themselves fighting society's indifference. After years of progress after years of growth in AIDS funding and some real significant advances in treatment. A lot of that is starting to be unwound right now that the federal commitment to AIDS I believe is being dismantled in many subtle ways right now. And the fear I have is of that will lead us right back to where we were 10 years ago will create this epidemic all over again if we continue following that kind of a plan. Hello this is Campbell Scott AIDS in the 80s was primarily a gay disease.

AIDS in the 90s is hitting everyone. Stay tuned for AIDS. Ten years later an update on how AIDS today touches every American. This is Campbell Scott. If you would like more information on how to get help with AIDS and HIV in your

community call the AIDS national hotline toll free at 1 800 342 AIDS. Hello this is Campbell Scott. AIDS in the 80s was primarily a gay disease.

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