AIDS Again ‘Has a Face’ in Greg Louganis : Health: The public will refocus on the disease and HIV testing will increase because of the Olympic athlete’s disclosure, gay-rights activists say.

AIDS activists in Orange County on Thursday expressed shock and sorrow, a day after the revelation that diver Greg Louganis has AIDS.

“When somebody comes out and says they’re HIV-positive,” said Dan Wooldridge, executive director of the Garden Grove-based Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Orange County, “it’s not only a shock but more like a chronic grief and concern you have that this is still happening.”

They also expect a greater interest by the public in AIDS and AIDS testing as a result, they said.

Not since the announcement in 1991 that Earvin (Magic) Johnson contracted the virus that causes AIDS has the public’s attention been so focused on the disease. HIV has infected an estimated 1 million Americans, according to the Surgeon General’s Report to the American Public on HIV Infection and AIDS.

Orange County reported a total of 3,611 AIDS cases as of Dec. 31, 1994. Of those, 2,111 have died.

Wooldridge warned that the public should not fixate on Louganis’ case, because he is one of a very large number of “enormously gifted and talented people” who have AIDS.

In addition, activists expressed frustration and anger with some media that had played the Louganis’ story as a gay issue, when infection can occur from a variety of sources.

“I get upset talking about it as a gay issue when it’s not,” said Richard Grauman, 32, a program manager at a Fullerton hospital. “And when I hear people saying that he could have passed on the virus from that bloody head injury in the ’88 Olympics, I get so angry because that isn’t true. But then I see the need for more education.”

On a positive note, they said the AIDS crisis again “has a face” after news that an athlete who was in top physical shape contracted the AIDS virus. They also viewed Louganis’ announcement as heroic, because the diver is trying to contribute to the AIDS fight.

“It’s going to open a lot of people’s minds who are going to realize it is a disease that crosses all bounds,” Grauman said. “There might be a kid out there who looked up to Greg Louganis, and he or she will say, ‘Hey! This could happen to me too,’ and become more concerned.”

Grauman was team captain for the 86 athletes from Orange County who participated at the Gay Games in New York City last year, where Louganis revealed that he is gay.

Louganis had retired from competitive diving in 1988 and has been pursuing an acting career. Louganis made his disclosure about AIDS in a television interview that will be broadcast today on the ABC program “20/20.” According to a transcript of the program, Louganis said he tested positive for the AIDS virus before the 1988 Summer Olympic games in Seoul.

“With Greg,” Grauman said, “there was a lot riding on his marketing success. Would Wheaties and other major commercial marketers have picked him up if he had come forward earlier and said, ‘I’m gay’ ?”

When Louganis publicly discussed his sexual orientation at the Gay Games in New York, the gay community celebrated an openness rare for the sports world. Now, said Lee Klosinski of AIDS Project Los Angeles, gay men are once again reminded of “the relentlessness of the epidemic.”

“This just contributes to the collective grief that we feel. It’s ‘Oh my God. Here’s another person, Greg Louganis,’ ” Klosinski said.

Louganis tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, six months before the Seoul games. But only a few people, including his coach, Ron O’Brien, knew of the test results when Louganis cut his head on a diving board and began bleeding during the games’ preliminary competitions.

News accounts this week have focused much attention on the incident, raising questions of pool contamination and whether Louganis had a responsibility at the time to tell Olympic officials that he had HIV.

“Unfortunately, what’s getting missed so far is the fact that Greg Louganis showed the world you can be HIV-positive and be the world’s best,” said Daniel Wolfe of Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York. “That should be the message people take home with them.”

Lorri L. Jean, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, expressed dismay at the tone of discussion of the pool injury.

“I think that’s just outrageous,” Jean complained. “Not only are they blaming the victim, but it is not the responsibility of individual athletes to advise groups like the Olympic Committee or whatever about their HIV status.

“The (committee) should be prepared already,” Jean continued. “Because the truth is . . . there are hundreds of thousands of people who don’t know what their HIV status is who are positive.”

The doctors who treated Louganis for his head cut tested negative for HIV when the U.S. Olympic Committee later learned of Louganis’ condition. And AIDS experts said this week that it is extremely unlikely that the virus could be transmitted through chlorinated pool water.

Calling Louganis “the greatest diver there ever was and will ever will be,” UC Berkeley diving coach Phil Tonne concluded, “We wish him well.”

Times staff writer Frank Williams contributed to this story.