Cumulative AIDS cases in the United States: 612,078 Cumulative AIDS cases in sub-Saharan Africa: 14,000,000 Documented cases of female-to-female transmission of HIV: 5 Number of Spice Girls: 5 Retail cost of one year’s worth of syringes for average IV drug injection: $95 Wholesale cost of one year’s worth of Combivir (AZT/3TC) before retail mark-up: $5,320 Cost of a new toilet on the space shuttle: $23,000,000 Cost of James Cameron’s film Titanic: $200,000,000 Number of Starbucks coffee shops in San Francisco: 30 Number of needle exchanges in San Francisco: 10 Number of syringes dispensed each week by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation: 40,000 Total AIDS deaths in the United States through June 1997: 379,258 Total casualties due to the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 170,000 Total U.S. casualties in the Persian Gulf War: 265 Total U.S. casualties due to Legionnaire’s Disease: 29 Total number of films made by Audrey Hepburn: 25 Number of weeks And the Band Played On was on The New York Times bestseller list: 5 Number of weeks The Bridges of Madison County was on The New York Times bestseller list: 164 Title of the George Orwell novel in which the totalitarian government outlawed orgasms: 1984 The year HIV was identified and condoms promoted to prevent transmission of HIV in semen: 1984 Percentage of the U.S. population that is African American: 12 Percentage of new U.S. AIDS cases that are African American: 42 Chance that an American will die in an automobile accident: 1 in 125 Chance that an American will test positive for HIV: 1 in 333 Chance of winning the jackpot in the average state lottery: 1 in 4,000,000 Amount raised by Carol Burnett in 1998’s Jeopardy Celebrity Invitational for the Hereditary Disease Foundation: $15,000 Amount raised by Gay Men’s Health Crisis’ 1997 AIDS Walk: $4,800,000 Number of walkers at 1997’s AIDS Walk: 36,000 Number of pills popped in the movie Valley of the Dolls (excluding two overdoses): 12 Number of pills taken by this writer each day: 38.5 Total U.S. box-office gross of Philadelphia: $77,324,000 Total U.S. box-office gross of Dumb and Dumber: $127,175,000 Number of ACT UP chapters in the United States as of March 1997: 12 Number of panels on the AIDS Memorial Quilt as of September 1997: 43,077 Number of panels dedicated to Mike, Mikey or Michael as of October 1996: 291 Number of panels dedicated to Deb, Debbie, Deborah or Debra as of October 1996: 37 Total National Institutes of Health budget allocated to AIDS in 1996: $1,400,000,000 Total amount that pet owners spent on health care for dogs, cats and birds in 1996: $11,100,000,000 Number of women incarcerated in New York state prisons as of January 1998: 3,700 Percentage of women in New York state prisons who are HIV positive as of January 1998: 18 Number of CD4 cells that POZ founder Sean Strub had in spring 1995: 1 Number of CD4s Sean had in spring 1998: 357
