AIDS Expert Denounces Sexy Ads for Alcohol

A leading AIDS educator called on advertisers Monday to stop using sexual images to sell alcohol, telling a conference of doctors and social workers that such commercials are contributing to the mushrooming of HIV among young people.

“Kids do what they see,” said Dr. Richard Keeling, chairman of the American College Health Assn.’s Task Force on HIV Disease. “We say, ‘Don’t mix sex and alcohol,’ but then ads merge parts of women’s bodies with selling alcohol.”

Speaking to 700 nurses, pharmacists and AIDS researchers, Keeling was one of several dozen people who shared what they know about the transmission and treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus and AIDS at the seventh annual HIV/AIDS On the Front Line Conference. The two-day conference, which continues today, is being sponsored by the Orange County Health Agency and UC Irvine and is being held at the Red Lion Hotel in Costa Mesa.

Panel discussions addressed technical matters, such as the physical changes that occur in the brains of AIDS patients, and care issues, such as how to counsel people with AIDS and help HIV-positive clients file the proper medical benefits forms.

“We have been primarily putting this conference on to increase the competency of health-care providers in their knowledge of HIV,” said Penny Wiesmuller, manager of disease control for the county Health Care Agency.

Keeling said most unprotected sex among young adults occurs when they are drunk. So to prevent the spread of HIV, society should target ads that use sexy models to sell beer and focus on giving young people the self-confidence to reject alcohol as a solution for their problems, he said.

“Ninety-five percent of college students know what they need to know about AIDS, but this doesn’t translate into changed behavior,” Keeling said.

Lupe Perry, a communicable diseases specialist in the Fresno County Health Department who used to work for the Long Beach Health Department, said AIDS educators should aim AIDS awareness campaigns at young people because “they’re more changeable than adults.”

The number of AIDS cases reported in Orange County has risen sharply since 1981, when the first cases were reported. AIDS cases jumped 72.3% from 1992 to 1993, according to county health officials. Although AIDS first surfaced strongly among the county’s gay white men, 1993 statistics showed that AIDS is moving quickly into the Latino and African American communities.

In 1992, the latest year for which such data is available, HIV infection was the leading cause of death for 25- to 44-year-olds in the county, health officials said.

At an American Medical Assn. conference last July, the president of the Society of Adolescent Medicine reported that the number of people aged 13 to 21 infected with HIV had increased 77% nationwide in the previous two years.