sulak@ge-dab.GE.COM (John M. Sulak) (11/07/89)
*****
Sanford Herald, Sanford, Florida - Tuesday, October 17, 1989 page 2
AIDS is top killer of prisoners
Miami - Aids is the No. 1 killer of Florida prisoners, killing 114 in the
past eight years and pushing health care costs for inmates with the disease
to $14 million next year.
Since 1981, only 19 prisoners were executed by the state but 114 have died
of AIDS, the Miami Herald reported Tuesday.
A new study said nearly 3,000 inmates - 7 percent of the 39,000 state
prisoners - may be affected. By contrast, about 7,000 AIDS cases have been
reported among Florida's overall population of 12 million, about 0.05
percent.
"Prisoners are breeding factories for the virus, and we have to remember
that a lot of these people will eventually re-enter society," said Lenny
Kaplan, chairman of Fight for Life, a Broward County advocacy group for
prisoners with AIDS.
"They're making a scratch on the problem, but it's not enough. Treatment
of inmates with AIDS is barbaric."
In April, prison officials considered asking for money specifically for
AIDS treatment.
*****
>From the Daytona Beach News Journal, October 18, 1989, page 24A:
WASHINGTON (AP)- In what it called "a dark view of the future," the Hudson
Institute predicted Tuesday that 14.5 million Americans will be infected
with the AIDS virus by the year 2002 unless strong measures are taken by
government and society to control the epidemic...
Under the worst case, the researchers forecast that by the year 2002 almost
42 percent of the Black population aged 15 to 50 would be infected with
HIV, for Hispanics the infection rate would be 9.2 percent and the white
population, 2.9 percent.