AIDS Education Is Crucial

* I have witnessed the breakdown in safe-sex practices and the increase in complacency about HIV and AIDS as a result of the good news in drug treatments over the past several years.

I have friends who are long-term HIV survivors. They have survived not only by following their doctors’ treatment regimens to the letter but by living lifestyles that do not jeopardize their ability to fight opportunistic infection.

By eating wisely, minimizing or ceasing alcohol and drug use, staying active and keeping a positive attitude, they make it easier to survive longer while better drugs are developed and approved.

The so-called drug cocktails, while promising and very beneficial, do not work forever. These treatments fail in some patients even after working for several years as the HIV virus mutates and becomes resistant to the drugs. They also fail earlier if not taken properly or if the patient lives recklessly: by abusing alcohol or drugs or reinfecting themselves with other HIV strains due to continued unsafe sex practices.

This is not the time to become complacent about the HIV/AIDS crisis. For all the promising treatments, there is still no cure. It still is vitally important that everyone in our society become educated, especially our children and young people. It’s time we put our delicate sensitivities aside and allow public health agencies into the schools to teach young people about the dangers of risky sex practices. We should insist on public service announcements on television to send this message into homes. It may not be what everyone wants to see or hear but silence and ignorance equals death.

ROBERT HAMMER

Costa Mesa