About a month before leaving for college, I found myself sitting in my pediatrician’s office, being the oldest patient by at least 16 years. A toddler, about 2 years old, found it amusing to be riffling through the issues of “Health” newspaper and tossing them on the floor. As I went to help pick all the issues up off the floor, I noticed the headline on the newspaper: “More CNY Seniors Living With AIDS: The percentage of people over 50 living with AIDS in CNY is higher than the national average.” Once again, I found myself with information causing me to think of central New York as a large AIDS inflicted area. As I read through the article, I learned that 30% of all AIDS victims in central New York were over the age of 50. The article made some valid insights, stating how Viagra has made sex among the older population more prevalent, and since older citizens don’t need to worry about becoming pregnant, condom use is extremely low. Furthermore, symptoms of AIDS are very similar to the “normal aches and pains of old age”, making detection less likely (3). Such an article only expands the idea of an AIDS problem in an area, taking yet another demographic group into the mix, senior citizens.
