Half What Was Expected : 31% of Gay Men Tested Show Evidence of AIDS

After four months of blood tests on people who feared that they had been exposed to AIDS, a Long Beach health center revealed Thursday that evidence of the deadly virus was found in only 31% of 1,587 gay males--about half as many as medical experts had anticipated.

While officials with The Center in Long Beach hailed the test results as the most comprehensive yet made available to the public, they acknowledged that they aren’t exactly sure what their findings mean, particularly to gay males.

“It may be that the virus is not around as much as we thought it was,” said Dr. Michael Brown, the center’s executive director. But he also noted that the tests were given only to those who voluntarily sought them, and said, “It may also be that we are not cutting into the highest-risk groups yet among gay males.”

In any event, Brown said he hoped that the publicized results--taken from examinations conducted at The Center between June 25 and Oct. 31--will prompt more gay people to submit to the test, which indicates only whether a person has been exposed to the disease. Experts believe that only 5% to 20% of those who carry the acquired immune deficiency syndrome antibody in their blood actually fall ill.

Subjects Identified Only by Number

The test was designed in a way that guaranteed the subjects’ anonymity. Each person taking it was identified only by number.

Because medical officials have previously estimated that as many as 70% of gay males will eventually come in contact with the disease, Brown explained, many homosexuals have adopted the attitude, “Well, I’m gay, you know; I’m probably positive. Why should I be tested?” But he said Thursday’s results showing that initial Long Beach-area rates seem much lower “should be an encouragement to the entire gay community and the other high-risk communities to get tested, establish their status and begin to work with those results.”

The “primary reason” more gays aren’t coming forward to be tested, Brown said, stems from “the position of gay organizations against testing. They continue . . . to resist and advise people not to be tested. And we feel very strongly that that is a lousy approach. I think most of it is fear.”

In addition to the 1,587 males who acknowledged being gay, The Center also tested 1,755 other people who ranged from high-risk intravenous drug users to moderate-risk bisexuals to low-risk heterosexuals. Nine out of 10 tested were males, and 70% fell between the ages of 20 and 40. The youngest was 7 months and the oldest was 83.

Brown said virus antibodies showed up in a comparatively small percentage of those other groups, mostly within predicted levels.

About 64% of those tested came from areas outside of Long Beach, in part because The Center was the only so-called “non-government” testing facility in Los Angeles County until last month, when the Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood began a similar program. An additional 10% came from Orange County, where AIDS antibody testing is conducted through the county health department. Last month, officials there announced that tests were given to more than 1,000 men and women.

Thomas Prendergast, epidemiologist for the Orange County department, said the Long Beach results were similar to those obtained in Orange County.