AIDS Lecture April 18, 1988
15/8
AIDS: What We All Need To Know
By
C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD
Surgeon General
Of the
U. S. Public Health Services
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Presented to the National Association of Elementary School Principals
San Francisco, California
April 18, 1988

It was eighteen days since I had last spoken in public on the AIDS epidemic.

April 18" wasn’t too far away from March 6, 1988, when I had spoken to the National
Association of secondary school principals, for me to realize that what was good for the
secondary school principals would be equally good for elementary school principals. Therefore,
without apology, I presented in San Francisco to the elementary school principals the same talk
entitled, “What We All Need To Know” that had been well received by the National Association
of Secondary School Principals in Anaheim.

By way of greeting to this audience, I thanked Sam Save, the executive director and his board for
giving me the opportunity to speak at the annual meeting. I also told him it was my first full day
back in the United States after spending ten days in the People’s Republic of China rewriting our
health agreement with that country. The trip also provided me the chance to look at the Chinese
health facilities and meeting with their top public health officials, and I reported that there were
literally millions of educators in the People’s Republic of China who shared with this audience
their love of children and a deep and abiding wish that they would be able to grow up — smart
and healthy in a peaceful world.

At this writing in July of 2003, the prospect for the worst epidemic of AIDS in any country on
this planet being in China looms large over the entire global health community.

Because this is a repeated lecture, there will be no index.