Speed Up Aid for AIDS
Rock Hudson’s illness has focused renewed public attention on acquired immune-deficiency syndrome, the epidemic that has struck 12,000 people in the United States in the last four years--half of whom have died. President Reagan, recovering from cancer surgery, telephoned his good wishes to Hudson in Paris. Perhaps the President’s personal involvement will lead to a greater federal commitment to wiping out AIDS. For although the government has declared AIDS the nation’s No. 1 health problem, its efforts to combat it so far have not been adequate.
Washington is the primary source of money for research on AIDS, which destroys the body’s ability to fight infections. This year about $95 million will be spent on AIDS research, and the Administration has asked for an additional 45 million for next year. Almost all that money is being spent on efforts to find a vaccine that would prevent the disease, which is certainly important and should be pressed. But hardly any money is being spent on finding a cure for those who already have AIDS.
At the outset, researchers thought that AIDS would be like legionnaire’s disease, which was squelched in short order. But AIDS has proved much more difficult. In congressional testimony last week the Department of Health and Human Services said that no effective vaccine or treatment is expected until 1990 at the earliest. The prospect is frightening. Nationwide, the number of new cases is doubling every nine months; in Los Angeles the number of new cases is doubling every six months. At that rate hundreds of thousands of people will be struck by AIDS before medical science figures out what to do for them. The financial cost of caring for patients with AIDS could run into the billions of dollars. The human cost would be even more staggering.
In addition to preventing AIDS, this country needs to aggressively pursue every potential cure, as the French are doing. Rock Hudson went to Paris, as many other AIDS patients have done, because a promising drug, HPA-23, is being tested there. It doesn’t cure the disease, but it appears to slow it down. In several weeks, the government says, HPA-23 will be available experimentally in this country. Based on promising work overseas, it should have been here before now.
The federal health agency’s relaxed regulations for new drugs will make it easier for experimental drugs to be used. The government should make funds available for researchers to test any anti-viral drug that they think might work. There would be many blind alleys, but one successful drug would justify the effort.
In the meantime the best way to slow down the AIDS epidemic is to educate the public about the sexually transmitted disease and about ways to minimize the chance of contracting it. Gov. George Deukmejian foolishly vetoed more than $10 million that the Legislature appropriated for that purpose. The Los Angeles City / County AIDS Task Force last week recommended that the county begin a $500,000 program for AIDS education. The supervisors should adopt that proposal forthwith.
Though the vast majority of AIDS patients so far have been homosexual men, the disease has begun to spread through society at large. Everyone is at risk. But there remains a lack of urgency in both the government and the public mind. Perhaps Rock Hudson will wake people up. Much needs to be done, and it needs to be done fast.
