SCIENCE / MEDICINE : AIDS Grows Among Women

AIDS is rapidly rising through the ranks of killers of American women of childbearing age and by next year will probably rank as the fifth leading cause of death among them, scientists reported last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The AIDS death rate is dramatically higher among young black women than whites, and the disease is far more prevalent in the Northeast than in other regions, the researchers said. AIDS is now the eighth leading cause of death among American women of childbearing age. But the disease already claims more black women ages 15 to 44 in New York state and New Jersey than any other health problem, wrote the researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control.

Because women who have the AIDS virus are the major source of infection for infants, the trend portends disaster for thousands of children, CDC researchers wrote.