Still More Problems Than Progress : San Francisco AIDS Conference Opens at Time of Funding Fears, Political Turmoil

The Sixth International Conference on AIDS, which opens today in San Francisco, comes at a time of great promise and great frustration for those who have devoted themselves to eradicating this modern plague.

As thousands of physicians and researchers gather to share information, other thousands will take to the street--in what is hoped to be a peaceful assembly--to protest various AIDS research and funding roadblocks that make life more difficult for the desperately ill.

For the next few days, the world’s most important AIDS conference becomes the center stage for those who want to educate and learn, as well as those who just want to vent. Within reasonable limits, there is room, and need, for both.

Why? Because AIDS is a particularly cruel disease. Before it kills, it can cause any number of disabilities that by themselves can be daunting, like blindness and dementia. It robs life, often from young adults with their most productive years ahead of them. About six million persons worldwide will develop AIDS by the end of the decade, the World Health Organization estimates. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS continues to spread. The Centers for Disease Control predicts that between 52,000 and 57,000 Americans will develop full-blown AIDS this year; about 1 million are infected with the virus but are not yet displaying major symptoms.

Scientists hope for a breakthrough treatment in the next several years; their goal is to make HIV infection a chronic but manageable disease.

While federal funding for AIDS has grown rapidly, there are signs that Capitol Hill may be feeling political heat from other groups with serious diseases. Naturally, they want more federal support too. And behavioral change and drug treatments have slowed the spread of HIV among gay and bisexual white men. But efforts have been much less successful among intravenous drug users, Latinos and blacks. The fact that there is an international AIDS conference for the sixth time should tell the world community that it is far too soon to congratulate ourselves about the progress we’ve made against AIDS.

AIDS Crisis by Country: Cases reported per 100,000 in selected nations in 1989 The United States: 12.2 France: 4.2 Canada: 3.2 Mexico: 1.2 Source: World Health Organization: Global Program on AIDS