The Nation - News from May 12, 1989

As many as one-third of the nation’s 1.2 million injected-drug abusers may be infected with the virus that causes AIDS, government scientists estimate. Researchers reviewed 92 studies beginning in late 1987 and found that anywhere from none to 65% of drug abusers tested were infected with the AIDS virus, called the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV. Highest rates were in the Northeast, where the prevalence was 10% to 65%, and in Puerto Rico, where the prevalence was 45% to 59%, the researchers reported in today’s Journal of the American Medical Assn.