AIDS is quietly spreading among older heterosexuals

Newly divorced after 23 years of marriage, Jane Fowler was hesitant to re-enter the dating scene. When the then 50-year-old woman began seeing someone, it was a man she had known for years — a man she believes infected her with the AIDS virus.

"I had no idea what was out there," said the Kansas City, Mo., woman. "I was an older woman. I did not have to worry about becoming pregnant."

Fowler, now 67, is part of the new face of HIV — increasingly heterosexual, older and grayer.

"Women after menopause are not going to use condoms because they're not afraid of getting pregnant anymore. Viagra is spreading like chewing gum. Usually, medical providers don't even ask about their sexual life," said Monica Dea, a coordinator with the Center for AIDS Prevention and Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. "These people are continually getting infected."

While there is no nationwide system that tracks HIV infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that among Americans who have AIDS, the percentage who are older than 50 increased steadily in the 1990s.

Fowler and others complain that prevention efforts rarely target older Americans, and doctors sometimes discourage the elderly from asking about testing.

"One of our biggest problems is getting clinicians to take sexual histories of older people," Fowler said. "This is something we have to change. People my age, they'll ask me what an 'STD' (sexually transmitted disease) is. They think 'VD.' We were the venereal-disease generation."

Activists also are concerned that little testing has been done to determine if there are adverse reactions between HIV/AIDS medication and traditional aging drugs. "All of the drug trials were done on younger people," said Jim Campbell of Boston, the board chairman for the National Association on HIV Over 50.

One reason for the neglect, many say, is Americans' attitudes toward older people and sex.

"We're a youth-oriented culture," Campbell said. "We don't like to think of our parents or our grandparents having sex."

But studies show many older Americans have active sex lives.

A 1999 survey by the American Association of Retired Persons found that more than half of men and women age 45 to 59 reported that they had sex once a week or more. One in four men and women older than 75 said they too had sex at least once a week.

"We must all protect ourselves, We have to get past this that older people aren't part of this equation because older people don't have sex."

said Fowler, who has formed a group called HIV Wisdom for Older Women.

[The Associated Press]