News Release

     Dr. Phil Aaron Medical Center, Columbia, Kentucky, this week began passing out AIDS Prevention Kits which each include a bright red Trojan condom, the Center's own AIDS Patient Education magazine, and the complete Surgeon General's Report on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

    "We faced a challenge," Dr. Phil Aaron said. "We know that AIDS is at present incurable. But, we also know that it is almost 100% preventable. We know how to prevent it. All it takes is for the general public to have the knowledge of prevention and to practice low-risk or no-risk behavior.

    "We're giving them the knowledge. It would have been criminal for us to do less than we are doing," he said.

       Dr. Phil Aaron medical Center is underwriting the entire expense of producing and distributing the AIDS Prevention Kits, save for assistance from the Carter-Wallace Co., manufacturer of the Trojan brand condoms, in supplying the prophylactic devices.

    "Of course, we expect that some people will be outraged by our proposal that schools increase sex education. We know many here will be embarrassed by our call for condom and spermicide vending machines to be made commonplace in schools and recreational facilities, and for condom and spermicide displays to be put in checkout lanes of supermarkets, convenience stores, and other retail establishments.

    "They may even be offended by our suggestion that condoms and spermicides be as routinely present in family medicine cabinets as mercurochrome and aspirin," Dr. Aaron said. "But, that just doesn't matter. Human lives are at stake. A great number of society's health care dollars are at risk here. And these practices we advocate and this knowledge is all that it takes to give our people almost 100% protection against the disease."

    Dr. Aaron makes two major points about the events which led to the Center's conviction that the AIDS Prevention Kits project be undertaken.

    First, he is fond of quoting Albert Camus, who wrote in "The Plague", 'Let us all remember that each number represents a person.'

    As Dr. Aaron sees it, "Every one of those AIDS statistics represent a person--a son or daughter, a mother or father, somebody's loved one." The human side of the equation is very important, he says.

    And secondly, Dr. Aaron sees, for his rural area, an almost equally important economic factor. "Health care delivery in the most effective, efficient, and economical manner is an obsession with me. Prevention of disease is always more economical than treatment. In the case of AIDS, knowledge and low-risk behavior can prevent the disease.

    "When you consider that the cost of treating and caring for the average AIDS patient from onset of the disease to eventual and certain death is $147,000, our area simply can't afford to have one case of AIDS," he said.

    Combatting AIDS is so utterly simple that it is now the height of folly to risk it, Dr. Aaron says, "Look, we have clear choices here. People did not have such obvious options when they were threatened with bubonic plague, leprosy, or more recently, polio and cancer. But, with AIDS, we know how to prevent the disease. That's why we are making our bold move now."

    Besides the free condoms and the Surgeon General's Report, the center's publication itself has several other provocative aspects, including:

   --A sample of a "blue card" or an "I'm safe card" for sexually active people to carry after they test negative for the presence of the AIDS antibodies.

   ---A sample upfront contract between parents and children, similar to the contracts promoted by the sober driver advocates, outlining mutual support in AIDS prevention.

   --And a complete reprint of "ACTSMART", the Lexington, Kentucky, publication produced by the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department AIDS program which tells in common language how to prevent the disease.

    Dr. Aaron answers the anticipated question of why, with all the attention AIDS is getting nationally, there is any need to educate locally. "That's exactly it," he says. "The frontline is local, everywhere. When people hear the news on AIDS on national television, it's like Mount St. Helens erupting or an earthquake in Mexico or famine in Africa. It's remote. It doesn't affect them directly. When we do a local education effort, they know we're talking directly to them. And, again, people in our service area can't afford to have AIDS.

    "It is true that there are few reported cases of AIDS in our area. Yet, AIDS has touched families in our service area" Dr. Aaron said. "It's a lot like mini-skirts, hula hoops, and new hairdos. They are prevalent first on the East or West Coast. We don't think anything about them at first, but in a couple of years--before we know it---they're here. We could expect that to happen with AIDS, if we didn't act."