In May 1991,I contributed a description of the problems of children infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and their families to the American Journal of Diseases of Children,1 which devoted an entire issue to the health status of the nation's children. In the best of all worlds, 2 years later, I should be able to report substantial progress toward solutions to the problems of these children and their families, but unfortunately most of the serious problems facing these families remain essentially untouched by the larger community.
By this time, more than 10 years into the epidemic of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), more than 4000 cases of children with HIV infection have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New York, NY, which has reported about 25% of the nation's cases of children with AIDS, 575 children have died.2 Most of these children were infected