Risk of AIDS Rising for Older Adults

The number of those 50 and older infected with HIV is increasing at twice the rate of those under 50, according to experts on aging at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who are targeting older Americans for safer sex education. ?More and more people in their 60s and 70s are beginning new relationships,? says Dr. Robert Luchi, geriatrician at the Huffington Center on Aging at Baylor. He recommends that before adding sexual intimacy to a new relationship, people see their doctors, have a frank talk with their partners and get tested for the virus. In older people, sexual activity is cited as the most common cause of HIV infection. Yet one study found that people over 50 are only one-sixth as likely to use condoms and one-fifth as likely to get tested for HIV as those in their 20s.

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