AIDS Lecture June 18, 1987

Statement of
C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD
Surgeon General
U.S. Public Health Service
And
Deputy Assistant secretary of Health
Department of Health and Human Services

Before the
Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families
U.S. House of Representatives
June 18, 1987

 

The previous time I had spoken on AIDS was June 10", 8 days before this presentation. The last
one was before the Republican Leadership Task Force on Health Care. This is a statement made
to the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families of the House of Representatives.

These remarks were introduced by my reminding the committee that I had been a practicing
pediatric surgeon for forty years and therefore, the issue at hand — teenagers and AIDS — was of
foremost interest to me. I also reminded the committee that adolescents and pre-adolescents are
those with behavior we wish to especially influence, because of their vulnerability when they are
exploring their own sexuality and perhaps experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Their belief
that they are probably immortal puts many of them at great risk.

This was followed by a statement of risk using statistics and relying on related information in
reference to teenage pregnancies. Fortunately, thus far, only one percent of all AIDS cases had
occurred in persons under the age of 20 and most of those were infected by transfusion.
However, 21 per cent of all cases that had been diagnosed were in the 20 to 29 age group. Since
the time between infection with the virus and the onset of symptoms may be several years, it was
obvious that many of these youngsters were infected as teenagers. I compared these facts with
the understanding of teenagers was otherwise. Very few of them changed their behavior even
fully understanding the risk.

This was a natural introduction of the problem of education at home and elsewhere. I quoted the
statistics that 86 per cent of parents agreed that sex education courses should be taught in school
and 95 per cent of those agreed that such courses should teach 12-year olds about the danger of
AIDS. The obligation of the nations system of public and private schools is obvious.

I stressed that it was my opinion and that of the President and Secretary Bowen that education
about AIDS in young people should be based on fidelity, commitment, maturity and placing
sexuality within the context of marriage. The latest information available to us was from the
winter of 1986 indicated that 40 of the nation’s 73 largest school districts were providing
education and 24 more were planning such education. Information was provided concerning the
direction in which we thought such education should go and I noted the plans of the Centers for
Disease Control to work with national educational organizations. CDC planned to award
cooperative agreements to about seven national organizations that represents parents, school
boards, school administrators, teachers, medical professionals, church groups, and other
important professional and voluntary health and education organizations. Special awards would
be made in reference to minorities. The CDC plans enumerated were in reference to state and
local departments of education and training and demonstration projects.

In getting into the subject of research on AIDS, I referred to the National Institute on Drug
Abuse and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA) and their demonstration/training program
entitled, “AIDS Prevention Among High Risk Adolescents Populations”. Other components of
the Public Health Service working together were planning a workshop just a few days after this
presentation on “AIDS and Adolescents in Crisis”, to discuss prevention, intervention, and
treatment.

I then discussed several of the AIDS demonstration grant projects administered by the Health
Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) and talked some about the plans afoot at the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the components of the
National Institutes of Health. I closed with a quote from my own report on AIDS, “Those of us
who are parents, educators, and community leaders, indeed all adults, cannot disregard this
responsibility to educate our young. The need is critical and the price of neglect is high. The
lives of our young people depend on our fulfilling our responsibility.”

Because of the nature of this report to a component of the Congress, there is no index.