The.Lurker@f669.n107.z1.fidonet.org (The Lurker) (10/13/89)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The city's Health Department says it
has documented the first two cases in which men have become
infected with the AIDS virus through oral sex.
"If people have bargained that oral sex is what they're going
to do and stay uninfected, we now have direct evidence that it
can happen," Dr. George Rutherford, director of the department's
AIDS office, said Friday.
The findings came in the study of hundreds of gay and
bisexual men that the Health Department has been conducting
since the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
City Health Director Dr. David Werdegar acknowledged the
findings were based on interviews with the subjects rather than
clinical evidence but said researchers were "absolutely sure"
the two gay men had contracted the human immunodeficincy virus
through oral sex.
"We believe we got very accurate information," said Werdegar,
who added that the subjects trusted the Health Department
researchers and had worked with them over a long period.
The research team headed by Rutherford and Dr. Alan Lifson is
preparing to submit the results to either the Journal of the
American Medicl Association or the New England Journal of
Medicine, Werdegar said.
Both men who tested positive for the HIV virus reported
having performed oral sex on numerous partners, Rutherford said.
Other clinicians have reported a few other examples of people
becoming infected through oral sex, but the Health Department's
findings were the first time such a transmission had been
documented in a major study, Rutherford said.
Former Surgeon General C. Everett Kopp warned three years ago
that oral sex might be a transmission path for the AIDS virus,
but some health authorities and parts of the gay community had
started to believe otherwise. The city's gay and lesbian press
in recent months has debated the issue, and some private sex
clubs allow the practice.
"There have been a lot of questions about oral sex. (But)
this indicates it definitely is a risk," Werdegar said of the
findings.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is caused by a virus that
damages the body's immune system, leaving victims susceptible to
infections and cancer.
It is spread most often through sexual contact, needles or
syringes shared by drug abusers, infected blood or blood
products, and from pregnant women to their offspring.
The scientific name for the virus is human immunodeficiency
virus, or HIV.
As of July 31, the federal Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta had recorded a cumulative total of 102,621 cases of AIDS
in the United States, with 59,391 deaths.
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