San Francisco is changing face of AIDS treatment

It wasn't his first broken condom, so Rafael didn't worry. But three weeks later, the man he'd met in a bar called to say that he had "probably been exposed" to H.I.V. Rafael, a muscular, affable 43-year-old, went to a clinic and within 45 minutes learned he was infected. Although it was already closing time, a counselor saw him immediately and offered him a doctor's appointment the next day. At Ward 86, the famous H.I.V. unit at San Francisco General Hospital, the doctor handed him pills for five days and a prescription for more. Because he was between jobs, she introduced him to a counselor who helped him file for public health insurance covering his $30,000-a-year treatment.