Physicians Should Report Cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

Abstract

In the two years since the first cases of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported, AIDS has become an important and continually increasing public health problem. The distribution of cases is clearly not random; social, medical, sexual, and geographic characteristics powerfully influence the risk of its occurrence. The patient described in this issue of theArchivesby Kalish et al (see p 2310) is a member of two of the high-risk groups: homosexual men and hemophiliacs. Although cases with multiple risk factors are unique and interesting (this patient represents the only one of the first 1,902 reported) falling in both of these two risk groups, it is the other cases—the aggregate of cases in risk groups and the outlying cases in no-risk groups—that provide the epidemiologic data on which to base case-control studies and laboratory investigations. It is probably through such studies that the elusive cause of AIDS