AIDS is hitting our kids hard. New drug treatments have made us complacent about this terrible disease. Young Americans often see AIDS as just another sexually transmitted disease, something to be avoided, if possible, but not deadly.

The fourteenth International AIDS Conference just ended in Barcelona, Spain. It laid out the frightening path of this disease worldwide, which I'll get to in a moment. But first, let's realize that we are not immune in Colorado. According to the Colorado AIDS Project, over 7000 Coloradans have AIDS, nearly 6000 have the HIV virus and over 4000 have died from the disease.

The most frightening statistic of all, however, is that 28% of newly infected people in Colorado are between the ages of 20 and 29. Nationally, there are 31,000 AIDS victims between 13 and 24, 61% of whom, according to the Centers for Disease Control, are female. Just think what that means for babies born to these young women. The vast majority of these youthful AIDS victims contracted the disease through sexual contact.

At the Barcelona AIDS Conference, speakers estimated that 40 million people have HIV/AIDS today and that 68 million people could die of AIDS by 2020. Each day, the epidemic claims 8500 lives around the world, while 14,000 people are newly infected. Conference documents point out that, while life-preserving drugs are vastly cheaper than they were two years ago, only 30,000 of the 28.5 million Africans with AIDS get drugs, compared to 500,000 of the 950,000 North Americans with the disease.

Today, 94% of AIDS victims live in poor countries. The chances of providing drugs to all of them are nil. Consequently, many poor countries are focusing on better prevention, something we must do as well. In Uganda, for example, intensive prevention efforts have resulted in a 37% reduction in new AIDS cases. Thailand, long an Asian sex capital, has had similar results.

The key, these countries' AIDS experts say, is clear, complete education about the disease and its causes. The message must be promoted by a country's leadership. Program delivery needs to be local. For many in conservative societies, including the United States, explicit discussion of risky behavior and safe sex is taboo. But, that taboo could kill our kids.

The International AIDS Conference participants recommended that prevention efforts include advertising campaigns, school and workplace education, condom distribution and needle-exchange programs. This is anathema to many conservatives who advocate teaching only sexual abstinence and abhor anything they believe encourages dangerous behavior.

We must get beyond this. One speaker at the Conference talked about the ABC's of AIDS prevention. A is "abstinence"; B is "be faithful" and C is "condoms". We know from our own experience that abstinence programs alone don't change young people's behavior. It is an important part of prevention efforts, but does not work by itself.

The Centers for Disease Control recommend several strategies for combating AIDS among young people. First, there must be programs in schools to reach kids before they become sexually active. These need to include a focus on delaying sexual activity and also on helping sexually active young people protect themselves.

Next, community-based programs are essential for children not in school and at highest risk of contracting AIDS, such as runaways, juvenile offenders and drop-outs. A particular effort needs to be made to educate young gay and bisexual men who are at great risk of becoming infected. Homophobia is no excuse for ignoring this vital effort.

Finally, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases is critical. About 8 million people under 25 contract STD's each year and are much more likely to get AIDS, if exposed, than uninfected people. Expanding STD treatment would help reduce the risk of transmitting the HIV virus.

Complacency about AIDS could bring a tragic new outbreak of the disease in the United States. It's not enough to say "no sex" when kids are having sex. They need to know how to protect themselves from this fearsome disease. For our kids, the time has come to provide full and useful information. To deny them that education could be deadly.