California: Youth at Higher Risk for HIV Today

At Tri-City Health in Fremont, Calif., 20-year-olds sit in a room furnished with worn couches, fuzzy pillows and hot-pink rugs organizing baskets full of condoms and bright flyers that say "The Lowdown 4 the Getdown." They are trying to get other youth educated about safe sex and HIV, which is a tough battle because anyone under 20 was not born when the AIDS epidemic began. Having heard about HIV their whole lives, they assume they know the risks, but often they do not.

Michael D'Arata, youth services director at the East Bay AIDS Center at Alta Bates Summit Hospital, will open a new youth clinic in downtown Oakland on Nov. 14 with the goal of keeping HIV-positive youth motivated to stay healthy and avoid infecting others.

The present youth clinic has 34 patients under age 24, and 28 patients ages 24-29. The youngest was infected at age 15. Because young people generally have strong immune systems, they do not show up at emergency rooms with HIV-related infections, making it difficult to track HIV-positive youth. Attempts to track down infected youth are also hampered by a paucity of funding.

"It's a huge problem," said D'Arata. "A lot of HIV-positive kids don't have horrendous backgrounds. They aren't streetwalkers or homeless. They're middle-class African-American girls often infected by much older men."

Dr. Lisha Wilson, medical director of the AIDS Health Foundation Magic Johnson Clinic in Oakland and San Francisco, said widespread apathy is fueling infections among youth. Wilson believes HIV has lost its ability to truly frighten: "It just doesn't feel real to people."

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