Women at Risk : Health: As the number of AIDS cases increases, activists are trying to raise awareness of the role gender plays in the disease’s progression.

A candid Aileen Getty, granddaughter of the late oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty and former daughter-in-law of Elizabeth Taylor, figures she contracted AIDS one of two ways in 1984.

Either by blood transfusion or unprotected sex.

She likes to believe she was infected by a blood transfusion. Less shame in it, says Getty, the mother of two young sons who lives in the Hollywood Hills.

But in her heart, Getty feels she got the disease via condomless sex. Worse still, she adds, is that it was fear of rejection that made her refrain from asking her partner to use a prophylactic.

“I was aware of safe-sex practices and involved in (the movement to educate the public about) AIDS then,” says Getty, 33. “I had all the information. But I didn’t opt to act on behalf of my life. It was an awkward situation, easier not to bring it up. What if I was turned down? Obviously, I am not the only woman who behaved that way.”

Getty believes that hers is a cautionary tale for other heterosexual women, who risk their lives to spare partners the “discomfort” of wearing condoms. But WomenSEARCH, a new Beverly Hills-based organization with which Getty is involved, wants to send a message to all women, among whom the percentage of new AIDS cases is growing rapidly. Their message: AIDS crosses all social strata and gender.

Getty, a number of women in film and physicians joined the group to educate women of the risk of HIV-infection and meet the special medical and psychosocial needs of HIV-positive women.

The group is an offshoot of SEARCH Alliance, a medical research group started three years ago that is dedicated to finding effective HIV treatments and a cure for AIDS. Stockton Briggle, a fund-raiser for SEARCH Alliance, founded WomenSEARCH three months ago when he became alarmed at the rising percentage of women becoming infected by AIDS.

According to Dr. Gary Cohan, an internist at Pacific Oaks Medical Group and a member of the medical review board for WomenSEARCH, the percentage of new AIDS cases is growing at an alarming rate among women while it has tapered off among homosexual men, many of whom have become vigilant about safe-sex practices since the disease reached epidemic proportions. Women now make up more than 14% of the total number of AIDS cases, up from 11% in 1991, said Bob Howard, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Medical professionals are alarmed at the increase in new cases among women. Some speculate that AIDS will soon become one of the leading causes of death for U.S. women ages 15 to 44 if nothing is done to stop the increase.

The number of women who have come down with full-blown AIDS since 1981, when the disease started being tracked, is 27,831 out of a cumulative 242,146 cases in the United States, according to CDC figures.

Yet more alarming is evidence that women die faster of AIDS than men because of late diagnosis. The same is true of cancer and heart disease in women.

“Physiologically, there is probably no difference in the way the disease progresses in genders,” Cohan said. “But because women generally are not diagnosed early, they don’t have the advantage of getting antiviral treatments. By the time they get to the doctor when they are symptomatic, their immune system is pretty beat up.”

The disease in women is diagnosed later, Cohan said, because “they have a lack of perceived risk if they are in certain demographic groups,” a stereotype that Cohan thinks blinds some physicians to properly diagnosing HIV-infected women.

“Women have been ignored in the entire epidemic,” he said. “There are analogies being made between how gay men were treated in the beginning of the epidemic and how women are being treated now. Physicians telling women not to get tested because they are in a certain demographic group is really irresponsible. When you sleep with someone, you have slept with everyone your partner has by association, and you just have to assume that they have been exposed.”

According to Dr. Robert S. Jenkins of the Pacific Oaks Medical Group and a member of the medical advisory board for WomenSEARCH, there are HIV-infection symptoms exclusive to women. Pelvic inflammatory disease, cervical cancer, recurring vaginal yeast infections and the presence of Human Papillona Virus, which causes genital warts, are all opportunistic viruses that indicate a test for the virus is in order, he said.

But Jenkins added that its the psychosocial and socioeconomic differences that put women at risk and make treatment difficult to get. Women who have the virus often have children and are their sole supporter and care giver, making it difficult for them to get care for themselves. Gay men, he said, tend to be of a higher socioeconomic class, without dependents.

Linda Luschei, a Santa Monica woman who has AIDS, agrees. She was infected with the virus by her husband in 1985, when she was just a newlywed. Her husband died soon after, and Luschei began leading a life of fear, shame and secrecy about her HIV status. Now, many years later, she has found resolve and courage from other HIV-positive women and organized the first support group for HIV-infected women in Santa Monica. Called Women At Risk, their first meeting is Tuesday. Similar groups have been meeting in Hermosa Beach and West Hollywood.

“There are really different issues for women with AIDS,” she said. “For me, one of the most difficult things was realizing I am not going to be able to have children. . . . It’s the male equivalent of emasculation. Then there’s the whole good girl, bad girl thing: ‘Gosh, you must promiscuous to get HIV.’ ”

Women are also at a disadvantage when it comes to clinical test trials for drug treatment, because of exclusionary criteria written into drug-test trials, said Marcia Smith, spokeswoman for WomenSEARCH.

There has been a long tradition of sex bias in drug-test trials and research studies based upon the premise that women could become pregnant or that their hormonal cycles could have an unpredictable impact on results. Yet, critics argue, the results of these male model medical studies are routinely applied to women patients with nary a pause over biological differences.

One such study is one funded by the National Institute of Health on Aging examining the effects of normal human aging that followed only men from its inception in 1958 until 1978 when women were recruited, making long-term data on women unavailable. Another study on lifestyle factors related to cholesterol levels and heart disease, the leading cause of death among women, was nicknamed MR. FIT: apropos when considering it included 15,000 men and no women.

And although heart disease is the leading cause of death among women, two studies last year found that U.S. women with heart disease could expect to receive significantly less medical attention than their male counterparts because of a “sex bias” among cardiologists.

AIDS researchers and medical professionals involved with WomenSEARCH argue that treatment of HIV-positive women by physicians and researchers is following in this tradition. SEARCH Alliance does include women in its clinical trials, Smith said.

Cohan and members of WomenSEARCH are organizing free AIDS testing for women at the Pacific Oaks Medical Group in Beverly Hills at the end of this month. A number of supporting physicians including Dr. Joel Weisman, former president of American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR), are also involved. WomenSEARCH and the contributing physicians hope to influence the Venice Family Clinic, Drew/King Medical Center in Watts and other hospitals and medical centers to follow suit, with the eventual institution of a citywide Women’s AIDS Testing Day.

“WomenSEARCH will be involved with the transportation (to and from testing sites), with the counseling and filling out the forms,” said Smith, who added that the Minority AIDS Project, Asian Pacific Intervention Team, Latino service provider Alianza, and the Black Gay and Lesbian AIDS Prevention Team will be used to alert women in various communities about the free testing.

But the way Getty sees it, one of the greatest hurdles to women getting better medical care is their inclination toward self-sacrifice. During one particularly grueling moment in her illness when she believed she was going to die, Getty said she was consoled by the thought that she hadn’t taken too much from her friends and families’ lives during her own short, pain-filled existence.

“Women’s nature is to take care of, not to be taken care of,” she said. “It’s almost like they’ll reject help. It’s curious and scary. Another problem is that a lot of the women who have this disease are single with children, and when your children need to eat that comes first, leaving very little time for one’s own health. But what women really need to know is that they are at risk, and once a lot of women are behind this movement, like the homosexual community is, the rest will take care of itself. Women can either take AIDS on or it will take us.”