indicates the public's wide concern about the killer disease. Since AIDS threatens all areas of Bermudian life it should be possible to build public awareness of AIDS on this concern.

What we need, of course, is a unified effort. Concern, caring and offers of support for those afflicted and their families is not enough. The public needs to join with Government to get the message across that AIDS is universal.

Some progress has doubtless been made by the forthright and eminently sensible presentations of Dr. Victoria Cargill. Unfortunately the impact of someone like Dr. Cargill on the public is dramatic but tends not to be lasting.

Therefore it is necessary to constantly remind people of the threat of AIDS.

People are dying. A great many more people are going to die. Unfortunately the disease is involved with sex and drugs and both are taboo. If this were not a sexually and IV transmitted disease, people would be much more willing to face it. We have to learn to deal with this killer head on and to use whatever means we have to prevent deaths. Abstinence and committed relationships would be the ideal but in a Country where promiscuity is widely accepted and where many churches accept adultery, abstinence is unrealistic and "committed'' relationships are too often a sham.

Condoms are not perfect but they do prevent the spread of AIDS and there is little doubt that without them as a tool there would be far more AIDS patients today than there are. As Dr. Cargill said here in Bermuda, we need to be non-judgmental about AIDS. We must learn to look on condoms as a medical tool rather than as a religious issue.

Cabinet Minister Quinton Edness, a former Minister of Health, has said quite correctly that churches which condemn condom handouts are shoving their heads in the sand. We agree with Mr. Edness that Bermuda needs a new and, we think, more extensive anti-AIDS advertising blitz which expands on the "Use Your Condom Sense'' campaign.

There have, of course, been attacks on condom advertising and on plans to distribute condoms in bars to mark World AIDS Day. We think that condoms should always be freely available in bars and that such a programme should be sponsored by the Ministry of Health. We also think that there should be free exchange of clean needles for used needles to people who need them, even though most IV drug users are now dead.

We also believe that there should be wide distribution of condoms in schools without any judgmental factor. They should be distributed in such a way that there is no "adult'' about to ask questions. Some parents and a few churches will complain but we will save lives and parents should be thankful because many parents do not know when their children are having sex. Did yours know that you were? Bermuda must arrive at a state of availability where no one has unprotected sex for need of a condom. Government and AIDS groups like the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation and STAR simply have to ignore the nay-sayers and get on with expanding the anti-AIDS programmes.