TV REVIEW : ‘Women & AIDS’: Harsh Realities

Women are assured daily via TV ads that one of their most common gynecological complaints--yeast infections--now has over-the-counter remedies. No more trips to the doctor, no more prescriptions. So it may come as a shock to be told that a vaginal yeast infection is one of the most common symptoms of AIDS and HIV-infection in women.

“Women & AIDS,” airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on KCAL-TV Channel 9, intentionally sounds a harsh wake-up call to all women who feel cocooned from the danger of HIV-infection because they’re not promiscuous, not an IV-drug user and not distrustful of their sexual partner.

But reported AIDS cases among women having heterosexual sex are rising faster than in any other group in the nation, host Pat Harvey says.

AIDS research has mostly ignored the effects of the disease on women, we hear. Is that why those who have it are dying three to four times faster than men?

Financial or medical aid for HIV-positive women is hard to come by because a woman’s infection can manifest itself through gynecological disorders--yeast infections, pelvic inflammatory disease, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer. Those disorders are not listed in the the Centers for Disease Control’s definition of AIDS.

Through interviews with AIDS specialists, activists and infected women--married, widowed and single, young and old--the alarm is sounded: Due to ignorance and foot-dragging among the public, the medical community and the government, AIDS is spreading. It can wear any face and, increasingly, that face is female.