The Nation - News from Oct. 3, 1989

Up to 20,000 American children under age 13 may be infected with the AIDS virus, but a cumbersome definition of AIDS is keeping many of those youngsters from being diagnosed, a doctor said. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, 1,681 children had been diagnosed with fully developed AIDS through June. But Dr. Celine Guerra Hanson told an American Medical Assn. meeting in Houston that she believes the number of HIV-infected children may already stand at 10,000 to 20,000. The CDC definition primarily is targeted at adults and does not allow accurate reporting of children who are very sick with HIV infection but who do not meet that standard for fully developed AIDS, Hanson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said.