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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 10, 1986
PAGE 13
embracing not only the narrow syndrome
many more--rnfectio� and cancers.
appear�with tuberculosis, regular
influenzae (a bacteria that can cause
first described, but
Infected people are
pneumonia and hemophilus
everything from pneumonia
to meningitis).
Dr. [Jerome] Groopman [at New England Deaconess Hospital in
Boston] says he is tracking several new AIDS-linked cancers,
including Hodgkin• s disease, squamous cell carcinoma of the
mouth
(a
cancer
of
the
lining
of
the
mouth),
and
adenocarcinoma, "an extraordinarily aggressive glandular cancer
that is Just r'Ipping through people.
11
Among the most
devastatingw the uncounted manifestations of AIDS are its
neurological diseases:
psychosis, seizures, paralysis and
neuropathy--pain in the legs so extreme patients sometimes
cannot bear to have their covers moved. David Ho, a doctor at
the Massachusetts General Hospital
in
Boston, has examined 10
cases of neurological disease that failed the technical AIDS
definition, including two with "full-blown dementia and death."
Donald Abrams, a physician at San Francisco General Hospital,
asserts that such individuals may suffer more than people who
meet the CDC definition of AIDS. "Some people with Kaposi's
Sarcoma have a few purple spots for three years but otherwise
feel very well. But I remember another man, hospitalized five
or six times•••who became demented. We had to ask his lover
not to bring him into the clinic anymore because it was too
disturbing for the AIDS patients to see him."
The man died
without a diagnosis of AIDS••••
.
Ms. Christen, the spokeswoman for the San Francisco AIDS
Foundation, adds that excluding ARC from AIDS also leads to
under-reporting the problem•••• Another reason for the under
count is a tendency by some physicians not to report AIDS cases
to the CDC, or to omit AIDS from death certificates.
Dr.
Groopman says, "Every case I see I report to CDC, but there's
enough irrationality around that I don't put AIDS on every
death certificate. It could hurt families."�- -�-
The Never-to-be-Marrieds
Meanwhile, the phenomenon of single people
remaining single longer--with many of them ultimately never marrying--is a
definitely discernible trend in the United States. Particularly affected
are college-educated women who, pursuing a career during the prime years
of their 20's wake up, after age 30, to find the market of available men
drastically reduced. There are two significant summaries of the never-to
be-married phenomenon. The first is from the May 28 WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Many in the baby-boom generation•••have postponed wedded bliss
for so long that the u.s.--in a change with wide social and
economic implications--soon may have more lifelong singles than
at any other time this century. The far-reaching shift results
from women's increased education�d career options, improved
contraception, greater social tolerance for cohabiting couples,
single parenthood and homosexuality.