Experts Challenge View That Spread of AIDS Has Peaked

Top federal science advisers Wednesday challenged recent suggestions that the AIDS epidemic has peaked in the United States, citing new evidence that rising infection rates among women, teen-agers and middle Americans are more than making up for any slowing among urban gay men.

The scientists, in a report released here by the National Research Council, said crack cocaine is carrying the AIDS virus to previously uninfected groups, particularly women, and that studies of military recruits and urban teen-age mothers reveal that the virus is now well “seeded” among adolescents.

The committee called for a doubling of federal spending for AIDS prevention and for new and “user-friendly” forms of protection besides the condom. They also urged new ways of screening blood donors to reduce the up to 400 new infections still caused annually by contaminated blood.

“We could find little credible evidence that the end of the AIDS epidemic is in sight,” Don C. Des Jarlais, the committee vice chairman, said in a press conference preceding the Sixth International Conference on AIDS . He added: “The prevalence of the disease has . . . increased in new subpopulations not previously identified as high-risk groups.”

The advisory committee is made up of social, behavioral and statistical scientists brought together by the National Research Council. The council is the operating arm of the 127-year-old National Academy of Sciences, which explores questions of science and technology for the federal government.

The evidence cited by the committee included the following:

Tests of military recruits show that AIDS virus infections among 17- and 18-year-old men and women are equal--a finding that committee members said suggests that in the future women will carry a heavier burden of the disease.

Blood tests in newborn infants show that nearly one in every 100 black and Latino teen-age mothers in New York City are infected with the virus.

San Francisco and two other unnamed West Coast cities have found that younger gay men, aged 18 to 25, are two to three times as likely as older gay men to risk becoming infected through unprotected sex.

Des Jarlais, speaking to reporters, called on government agencies and community groups “to heed the data available about sexual activity and drug use reported by young people themselves and not engage in wishful thinking about patterns of behavior some might hope teen-agers would follow.”

The committee called for explicit AIDS education efforts in the schools that go beyond explanations of how the virus is spread and include specific information on such things as precisely how to use condoms and how to “negotiate” safer sex with a sexual partner.

The researchers also urged more meticulous screening of people who give blood. At the same time, to ensure adequate blood supplies, the committee called for recruiting of non-traditional donors, such as people over 65 who are often automatically excluded.

Finally, the scientists criticized policies that have hampered the search for accurate information about how and where the epidemic is spreading in the United States--data considered essential to allocating resources to fight the disease, and to designing programs to prevent further spread.

Specifically, the committee condemned a congressional policy barring the use of federal money to assess the value of clean-needle programs to prevent infection among intravenous drug users and the absence of any detailed survey of sexual practices in the United States.