AIDS in Japan

worrying new HIV and AIDS expansion:

"Japan is on the brink of going under," says Dr. Tsuneo Akaeda, a gynecologist who raises AIDS awareness by offering free 15-minute blood tests in Tokyo's nightclubs and streets. "They're ignoring that they have diseases. They're ignoring that they are sick."

The official toll of 10,070 people with HIV/AIDS in a nation of 127 million pales next to some countries. Even if the actual figure is closer to 40,000, that would mean roughly 1 in 3,000 are infected, compared with about 1 in 100 in Thailand or 1 in 1,500 in China, according to estimates by UNAIDS, the U.N. body waging the global war on AIDS.

But many in Japan are alarmed at the dangerous mixture of chronic underreporting of cases, a sexually freewheeling youth culture that's less inclined to use condoms or other protection, and the powerful social stigma of a sexually transmitted disease.

The story is always the same - repress open discussion about sexuality and the need for protection, and the kids are the ones that suffer. Young people all over deserve better.