AIDS Lecture August 3, 1987
Address by C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD
Surgeon General of the U.S. Pubic Health Service
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Presented before the International Platform Association
Washington, DC
August 3, 1987
It was twenty three days since I last spoke publicly about AIDS.
The International Platform Association is devoted to better public speaking and it was an honor to be asked to present this lecture to that audience.
I began by thanking the Platform Association for the honor of speak to them and suggested that I thought the jury members pay more attention to the issue of AIDS than they did to me personally.
This audience, unlike the previous audience I had spoken to on the subject of AIDS, was not a scientific body nor was it a group with a specific interest, such as state legislation, school education, Army recruits, etc. It was instead, a cross-section of the population of America probably better than average intelligence and experience, but nevertheless, not prepared for some of the intricacies of AIDS and its spread. For that reason the vocabulary is directed to a lay audience and the lecture is an attempt to cover the ground without specific reference to the burden of one group or another about the AIDS epidemic. The metaphors I used were appropriate for a general audience.
I was very frank in my discussion about how AIDS is spread from one person to another and especially how it is not spread. I tried to be accurate, sufficient graphic without being offensive. Of all the preceding lectures on AIDS, this is probably the best one for an audience with no particular concern about AIDS, except to be part of the education public.
I gave examples of other health problems by way of illustrating the problem or the lack of problem with AIDS that I probably would not have done with a more scientifically oriented audience.
There is nothing of a factual nature that appears in this lecture that doesn't appear in the previous ones on AIDS, but I had the general impression from audience response that the message was clear and that is all that I could ask.
AIDS
AIDS in homosexuals
Addiction to smoking
Blood tests for AIDS antibodies
Child abuse
Concentration of AIDS virus in blood & semen
Drug addiction & AIDS
Estimate of the prevalence of AIDS in US
Fatality of AIDS; 91% diagnosed in 1981 are dead
How AIDS is not spread
Immune system
Infection rates in homosexual & bisexual men
Measles
Mystery of the AIDS virus
Polio
Smallpox
Syphilis
Teaching young people about AIDS
Transmission of AIDS
Use of seat belts
Women as carriers of AIDS
President Ronald Reagan