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REMARKS BY: DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PLACE: "Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself" Press Conference DATE: November 30, 1995
Thank you for joining us.
Last week, our country reached another sad milestone in our fifteen year battle with AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than half a million men, women, and children have now been diagnosed with AIDS, and more than 300,000 Americans have lost their lives to this relentless killer.
This epidemic is taking a particularly heavy toll on young Americans. In 1993, AIDS became the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. And between 1993 and 1994, the number of AIDS-related deaths in that age group rose 8 percent.
We know that AIDS is only the final stage of a long-term illness that begins with an infection that can occur 10 or more years before diagnosis. That means that many of the Americans who are dying in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, were infected in their teenage years and their 20s.
The November 24 issue of "Science" includes a new study prepared by Dr. Philip Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute giving us even greater cause for alarm about our young adult population. The study shows that cases of AIDS have increased much more rapidly among individuals born in 1960 or later.
As you can see by the chart behind me, new cases of AIDS are rising rapidly among young adults and peaking as they reach their late 20s and early 30s.
What we have is a generation in jeopardy, and it is up to us to take action now to reverse these tragic trends before a new generation of leadership for this country begins to be wiped out by the AIDS epidemic.
The new public service campaign we are launching today -- "Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself" -- offers young adults the information they need to stay healthy. The NIH study shows that as each generation of Americans reach their late teens and early 20s, they enter a danger period with very high levels of HIV infection.
These public service announcements are specifically designed to reach adults between the ages of 18 and 25 with a balanced message of abstinence, prevention, and responsibility. They use the words and experience of young adults themselves to urge this generation to exercise their personal responsibility to protect themselves from HIV.
We know that prevention efforts work to slow the rate of HIV infection in targeted population groups. We have seen some remarkable success, for example, among older gay white men, where infection rates were at their highest when this epidemic began and have come down considerably in recent years.
The key to successful prevention efforts is that they must be targeted. And they must be sustained over a period of years and even generations. We cannot start and stop because if we do that, this epidemic will just keep going and going.
Two years ago, our country took an important step forward when we launched the Prevention Marketing Initiative, aimed at young adults 18 to 25. We offered young adults the accurate information they need to protect themselves from HIV. We told them that abstinence is the best way to avoid sexual transmission of HIV. And we told those who are sexually active that they must use latex condoms consistently and correctly to significantly reduce their risk of infection.
This campaign is beginning to work. We have seen signs of greater understanding of and use of condoms and we have seen promising signs of a greater degree of sexual abstinence in young people and a growing movement toward what is called "secondary virginity." For those who have begun to have sex early in their lives to choose to abstain is a sign of increasing personal responsibility.
But we cannot stop here. The latest trends show that we have a great deal of work to do, so we are rolling up our sleeves and getting to work. I'd like to ask Dr. David Satcher, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to join me and describe this exciting new campaign.