Activists seek up-to-date government AIDS stats.

Byline: Jacqueline Reis

WORCESTER - Two local activists used an empty casket to draw attention to HIV infection rates, unavailable government statistics, and policies on needle exchange and sexual education.

Standing outside Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors Tuesday, Jesse T. Park and Cha-Cha N. Connor called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to "put an end to the climate of secrecy" by releasing new HIV incidence estimates. The CDC said it would release the figures "in early 2008," according to a Dec. 2 press release. Those estimates will be the product of new methods, and the numbers are still being finalized, according to the release.

The estimates of new HIV infections could be in the ballpark of 60,000 per year, or about 50 percent higher than the 40,000 figure the CDC currently cites, according to a Nov. 16 article in the Washington Blade, a gay weekly in Washington, D.C. The article cited AIDS advocates who said middle level officials at the CDC had leaked the information to professional and scientific colleagues.

The Worcester activists said withholding the statistics "is further stalling HIV prevention efforts," such as needle exchanges and comprehensive health education. Worcester public schools have comprehensive health classes, but Ms. Connor said condoms should be more widely distributed, perhaps through dispensers in restrooms.

Joseph D. McKee, executive director of AIDS Project Worcester, was not part of the press conference, but said he, too, has been waiting for the CDC figures. "In this country over the last seven or eight years, there has been a real effort to decrease AIDS funding, medical funding and support services ... and you cannot do that in the midst of a pandemic that is not dropping dramatically," he said.

Contact Jacqueline Reis at [e-mail].

ART: GRAPH

CUTLINE: AIDS cases and deaths

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/STACEY ARSENAULT