the usual horrendous figures of the number of people afflicted by AIDS, some 33.4 million worldwide.

In Bermuda the story is no better. The figures are high and the consequences are great. Yet it is our distinct impression that the local fight against AIDS is not as strong or as unified as it once was. For some reason the recent advances in the treatment of AIDS, the treatment not the cure, have made people a bit complacent and dulled the will to fight.

We do not believe that education against AIDS is all that it might be in Bermuda and we do not believe that the warnings are strong enough or that sufficient people actually heed the warnings.

There still seems to be an attitude of, "It won't happen to me,'' followed by another attitude which says, "Even if it should happen to me, these days it is not so bad.'' Thankfully, we do live in a rich Country where we can afford the expense of today's treatments. The sad truth is that dealing with AIDS has become a question of money. While powerful new drugs are helping people in countries like Bermuda, the disease has reached epidemic proportions in whole continents where people do not have access to the drugs or cannot afford the drugs.

In Bermuda we should not make a mistake. AIDS is still a killer and death is often long, protracted and very difficult. There is no cure for AIDS, only treatment, and there have been disturbing reports in recent years that Bermuda is not yet very good at the treatment.

The only sure way to deal with AIDS is by abstinence outside a committed relationship, with the not so certain alternative of carefully protected sex.

We believe that it is unrealistic to think that very many people are going to engage in abstinence, therefore we have constantly supported protected sex.

For that reason we think that protection such as condoms should be openly and readily available to anyone who wants it.

But the real problem is the attitude which says, "It won't happen to me.'' That leads to unprotected sex and AIDS can and does happen. Since AIDS was originally viewed as a disease of male homosexuals and intravenous drug users, people who were not homosexual or IV-drug users learned to think that they were not and would not be vulnerable. But the pattern of the disease is changing and spreading into the non-drug using heterosexual community. That is true elsewhere but seems to be especially true in Bermuda. Thus the "won't happen to me'' excuse no longer applies.

AIDS in Bermuda is still very much of an unmentionable disease. It still carries a stigma. The United States seems to have gotten past that point because of the prominent people who have gone public with their affliction, -- notably Magic Johnson and the late Rock Hudson. They and others like them made a difference.

It seems to us unfortunate in Bermuda that a number of prominent people who have died from AIDS did not have the strength to go public. They might well have made the difference that people like Magic Johnson made in the United States.