Study on Priests With AIDS Criticized
A widely circulated Kansas City Star report that U.S. Roman Catholic priests die of AIDS at a rate four times that of the general population and double the rate for adult men continues to stir debate.
An AIDS expert writes in the current edition of America magazine that priests’ death rate is not higher, and that new infections among clergy have actually “trended downward over time.”
The writer, Jon Fuller, is a Jesuit, a physician, a medical school professor in Boston and founder of the National Catholic AIDS Network. Fuller estimates the HIV infection rate at between 0.25% and 1% for clergy, compared with a United Nations estimate of 0.5% for all U.S. adults.
The Star’s statistics are also criticized on NewsWatch, a media watchdog site on the World Wide Web, by David Murray of the Statistical Assessment Service. Using data for the 1990s from the Statistical Abstract of the United States, Murray says the AIDS death rates for priests and other Americans are similar.
Responding to critics, the Star said its estimate came from medical experts and counselors who have treated priests with HIV and AIDS.
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