The Scourge of AIDS Cannot Be Ignored : * The Disease Is Now the Leading Cause of Death for Orange County’s Young Adults

There is no disagreement on the fact that AIDS is a deadly epidemic. The problem is that too many people consider it someone else’s fatal disease.

The Orange County Health Department’s latest report examining deaths from 1988 through 1990 should change that attitude here. The report shows dramatically disturbing percentage gains in AIDS deaths. AIDS has moved ahead of traffic accidents and heart disease to become the leading cause of death of Orange County residents ages 25 to 44.

When any disease becomes a leading cause of death in a community, it cannot be ignored. Nor can it be dismissed, as some are prone to do with AIDS, as a problem of just the gay community. AIDS is a public health problem that affects all county residents.

It is especially disturbing for AIDS to become the leading cause of death of those as young as 25. Generally, most people who contract the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that develops into a full-blown case of AIDS are infected for seven to 10 years before they die. That means some of the victims may have been infected as young as 15.

Orange County’s experience is not unique. Last April a congressional report warned that the AIDS virus was spreading unchecked among adolescents. And the virus is not isolated to any one area or economic group. The U.S. Surgeon General reports that in the last four years, the ratio of female to male AIDS patients has more than doubled--with female adolescents making up 39% of the caseload.

It is tragically apparent that the county’s young people are not getting the message about safe sex or abstinence.

Since 1981, about 1,200 people have died of AIDS in Orange County, and more than 2,000 active cases have been reported. About 15,000 residents have been found to be carrying the virus. How many other untested HIV-positive residents there are is anyone’s guess. Today, it threatens everyone. The caseload among minorities and women has been growing each year.

AIDS is always fatal. Scientists are searching, but for now, there is no cure. So parents, public health officials, politicians and educators must do a better job in providing frank public information on AIDS. And sexually active people must learn how to protect themselves--and must use that protection. The problem can’t be ignored. Not when AIDS is the leading cause of death of the county’s young adults.