Subject: CDC AIDS DAILY SUMMARY 03/09/94 (Selected Items)
From: Song Weaver <[email-masked]>

"HIV Among Homosexuals in the Netherlands"
Lancet (Great Britain) (02/26/94) P. 536 (Spanjer, Marjanke)

One in 20 gay men in the Netherlands is infected with HIV,  according to
a survey conducted by the State Institute for Public Health and
Environment (RIVM) and the Department of Homosexual Studies at the
University of Utrecht. The latest figures raise the tally of HIV-positive
homosexual men to between 6,500 and 15,000, whereas previous statistics
placed the total at 6,500 to 8,500. Dr. Hans Houweling of RIVM believes
that the 5 percent seropositivity rate may still be an underestimate,
since the  participants in the survey were subscribers of "Gay Journal"
magazine and probably represented a better educated sample of gay men who
knew how to avoid risk behavior. Three hundred and eight survey
respondents agreed to undergo HIV testing. The results  implied that not
only were gay men at high risk for HIV  infection, but that risky
behavior did not significantly decrease after HIV testing. The
researchers say this finding means that  preventive efforts need to focus
on those who are not yet  infected.

"And the Band Stopped Playing"
Newsweek (02/28/94) Vol. 123, No. 9, P. 36 (Adler, Jerry and
Monserrate, Carey)

When journalist Randy Shilts was cut down by AIDS at age 42, he  became
one of a projected 50,000 Americans who will die in 1994  in what doctors
are now referring to as a "mature" epidemic--one  that infects about as
many new individual as it kills. Shilts  kept his condition secret as
long as possible. "Every gay writer who tests positive ends up being an
AIDS activist," he once  explained. "I wanted to keep on being a
reporter." As a  full-time reporter covering AIDS for the San Francisco
Chronicle, Shilts did publicize the epidemic. He assured heterosexual
Americans that they could not contract AIDS from mosquitoes. To  his own
community, he issued warnings that anonymous bathhouse  sex and
promiscuity were killing gay men--a statement that was  contrary to the
commercial interests of bathhouse owners and the  broader issues of gay
identity. "A lot of those people are still angry at Randy for wanting the
bathhouses closed, but a lot of  them are dead," says Shilts' friend,
activist Larry Kramer.