Subject: Simon Claims Blasted
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 15:23:32 -0500 (EST)

From Rick Tabb, Executive Director
Community Health Trust AIDS and Wellness Services
PO Box 4277
Louisville, Kentucky  40204

SIMON'S CLAIMS CALLED A DISTORTION OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY

[Background:  In a new flyer being mailed out to supporters in the Louisville
area, anti-gay activist Dr. Frank Simon is charging that "There are hundreds
of children in America who are dying of AIDS because they were sexually
abused by homosexuals."  The following is a response to that assertion from
the executive director of Community Health Trust AIDS and Wellness Services,
Kentucky's largest community-based AIDS agency]

Frank Simon's claims linking AIDS and child abuse have been refuted by Dr.
Sten H. Vermund, Chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at the University
of Alabama, as a "grotesque distortion of my study."

Community Health Trust's Executive Director, Rick Tabb, continues:  "We are
deeply concerned about Simon's misrepresentation of scientific studies and
how that misleading information will harm our public health education efforts
around HIV/AIDS transmission."

Dr. Vermund stated, "It's hard to believe that Dr. Frank Simon and the
so-called Kentucky American Family Association would so flagrantly
misrepresent scientific work that anyone can walk into a medical school
library and so easily check."

Dr. Vermund went on to say, "Yes, HIV has been transmitted by sexual abuse as
documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the vast
majority of documented cases have occurred as a result of heterosexual men
attacking or seducing children."

Jamie Rittenhouse, HIV/AIDS program director for the Kentucky Department of
Public Health, will speak tonight at the Louisville Board of Aldermen's
Night-In to address Frank Simon's misinformation.  The Board of Aldermen's
Night-IN is scheduled tonight (March 4) from 5:30 - 6 pm. in the aldermanic
chambers at city hall.  Mr. Rittenhouse is scheduled as the sixth speaker.

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