AIDS: PUBLIC CONCERN BEGINS TO (PREMATURELY) WANE A growing perception on the part of many Americans that the threat of AIDS is diminishing-along with a maelstrom of reports about failed potential treatments-could be pushing public concern over AIDS into the doldrums. "We're really in the long-haul stage now. A lot of the initial terror, but also a lot of the initial excitement [over early scientific breakthroughs], has worn off. This is not a fine time for AIDS, if ever there was one," said Gerald Friedland, professor of medicine, epidemiology and public health at Yale University School of Medicine, speaking at Beth Israel Hospital on Nov. 29. Friedland's lecture was part of a universitywide commemoration of AIDS Awareness Week. Symposia, exhibits, films, plays and musical performances, taking place at Harvard Medical School and on the main Harvard campus, drew renewed attention to the global problem of AIDS. A central message that emerged from events at HMS is that finding a cure for AIDS is no longer seen by the public as a top priority. This lessening of concern is due, in part, to the lack of clinical breakthroughs. "Nearly 15 years into the AIDS pandemic we have only limited and expensive treatments," said Max Essex, Mary Woodard Lasker Professor of Health Sciences at HSPH and director of the Harvard Aids Institute, at a symposium held Dec. 1. Public and political attention to the disease also has fallen due to a widespread perception that the spread of AIDS is slowing in the U.S., said Arnold Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine, emeritus. The decline is fueled by an additional belief, he said, "that AIDS in the U.S. largely affects 'them' not 'us,' the 'them' being homosexual males, drug abusers and their sexual contacts." The result is that "the [majority of the] American public no longer feels threatened." | |
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