Countywide : Stigma Slows AIDS Fight, Scientist Says

The American response to the current AIDS epidemic is reminiscent of early 20th-Century “hysteria” and social hypocrisy about sexually transmitted diseases, a Harvard Medical School researcher said Monday.

Dr. Allan M. Brandt, speaking to the Infectious Diseases Society of America at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers, said social stigmas are hindering the battle against AIDS, just as similar taboos hindered efforts to quell syphilis about 90 years ago.

“There are striking similarities” between the two eras, Brandt said. “The fear of contagion. The stigmatization of the victims. The conflict between public health and civil liberties. The complex and ambiguous nature of sexuality in our culture.”

Brandt said that in the early 20th Century, social and moral taboos worked against the emerging scientific knowledge about syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases.

He said that much like AIDS victims today, people with syphilis at the turn of the century often were treated as outcasts. People of that era also ignored scientific facts about how syphilis was transmitted, Brandt said. He said some blamed public drinking fountains, and others said it was spread by touch.

At the turn of the century, books and plays had moral messages implying that victims of syphilis were guilty of misbehavior and thus deserved what they got, Brandt said. He said that even in today’s supposedly enlightened era, such finger-pointing still exists. For instance, he said, a recent magazine article tended to imply that some who get sexually transmitted disease are “poignant” and deserving of pity, while others are somehow guilty and not so deserving of sympathy.

Brandt said that as part of the battle against AIDS, the nation needs to “recognize social and cultural barriers” that impede an intelligent fight against the disease.

Brandt spoke on the concluding day of a three-day national convention of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, attended by about 3,000 delegates.

At another national gathering here on Monday, a Rhode Island physician told a press conference that men and women continue to practice unsafe sex despite knowledge of how AIDS is spread.

Dr. Kenneth Mayer of Memorial Hospital in Providence, R.I., told reporters about a 4 1/2-year study of about 2,000 men and women in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The federally funded study, which concluded in August, tried to identify sexual behavior that contributes to AIDS.

Mayer said the study found that heterosexual men and women know about the risk of AIDS but nonetheless engage in “risk taking,” such as casual sex without condoms.

Mayer’s presentation was part of the 32nd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy at the Anaheim Convention Center. About 15,000 delegates are taking part in the conference, which began Monday and concludes Wednesday.

Mayer said that male reluctance to use condoms condemns many women to infection by the AIDS virus.

“With the women in particular, there are a lot of problems in getting the male partners to be cooperative,” Mayer said. “When you tell women to practice safe sex, it is somewhat of an insensitive message because men have to be willing to put the condom on.”