AIDS . . . WOMEN WITH DISEASE DIE BEFORE MEN, STUDY SAYS

Women die faster from the AIDS virus than men and there's no apparent medical reason for the difference, according to the largest study of its kind ever undertaken. Researchers from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, in a study published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, studied AIDS patients ---- 768 women and 3,779 men ---- for more than a year and found that women were a third more likely to die than men whose AIDS virus was at a similar level of development. Women represent only 15 percent of AIDS patients nationally, although women and children make up the fastest growing AIDS population. The study's authors say, however, that women wait longer before seeking an AIDS test or treatment and may be treated differently than men even after the disease is diagnosed.