As volunteers
served dessert at a senior center in New York City, other
volunteers were distributing something else to the elderly:
condoms.
''You're giving
out condoms,'' said Rose Crescenzo, 82, ''but who's going
to give us a guy?''
The condom
giveaway is part of an effort by the New York City
Department of Aging to educate older people about the
risks they may face of contracting the virus that
causes AIDS. Free HIV testing was offered as well.
AIDS education of
the elderly has become an important issue as
antiretroviral drugs keep patients living longer. Experts
warn that ignorance about HIV among seniors can lead
to new infections.
In one case, a
doctor from Howard University Hospital in Washington
recently diagnosed unsuspected HIV in an 82-year-old.
"Often
older people do not concern themselves with HIV and AIDS
because they assume that they are not at risk, and
that can be a tragic mistake,'' said Edwin
Mendez-Santiago, New York City's commissioner of
aging.
A study last year
by the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America
projected that within the next decade, the majority of
HIV-infected New Yorkers will be over 50.
The group's
research found that many older New Yorkers with HIV are
isolated and may not use the city's network of more than 300
senior centers.
New York City has
the most HIV cases of any U.S. city, nearly 100,000,
and is considered a leader in the area of AIDS education for
seniors, with the city council having budgeted $1
million toward HIV education for older people.
But smaller-scale
campaigns are also under way elsewhere.
Nancy Orel, a
professor of gerontology at Bowling Green State University
in Ohio, is organizing an October workshop for seniors that
will include free condoms and HIV tests.
''Unfortunately,
most individuals have the perception that sex ends at,
what, 32?'' Orel said. ''And many older adults report that
when they go to see their physicians, the physicians
don't ask if they're sexually active.''
Dorcas Baker, who
directs an AIDS education center in Baltimore, said
health officials there began HIV prevention programs at
senior centers in 2005.
''We call it the
silent epidemic because no one thinks seniors are sexual
or that they're using drugs,'' she said.
Bernard Branson,
associate director for laboratory diagnostics in the
Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, said that people aged
50 to 64 accounted for 14% of new HIV diagnoses in
2005, while those over 65 made up only about 2% of
HIV diagnoses.
But Branson said
doctors should consider the possibility of HIV at all
ages.
At the senior
center in New York, 66-year-old AIDS educator Edward Shaw
recounted his own 1988 diagnosis and warned, ''If you're
still having sex, you need to know about HIV/AIDS.''
Many of the
seniors ignored him. But Marie Tarantino, who gave her age
as ''39-plus,'' said lonely seniors might take unwise
risks.
''They might pick
somebody up on the street,'' she said. ''They just
think that at a certain age they can't get pregnant. They
don't think they could get a sexually transmitted
disease.''
And Crescenzo,
who lost her husband of 62 years last October, did take
the condoms.
''If I get a
date,'' she said, ''I'm going to use one of these.'' (AP)