HIV Carrier Backs Condoms in Schools : Health: Man says he likely was infected as teen-ager, when better prevention program might have made the difference.

The day before today’s scheduled vote by the Los Angeles school board on whether condoms should be distributed on high school campuses, a man who said he likely was infected with the AIDS virus as a teen-ager joined other activists in a plea for approval of the controversial plan.

At a news conference Monday on the steps of Fairfax High School, 24-year-old Michael Landsman said that if he had been given the opportunity to learn about the AIDS virus and prevention of infection while in high school, he might not be infected today.

“Kids have sex,” said Landsman, who tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus two years ago. “What we have to ask ourselves is not whether it’s right or wrong, moral or immoral. . . . It’s about what we can do to save their lives.”

Although Landsman said he cannot be sure when he became infected, he said it most likely occurred in his teens when he engaged in unprotected sex.

Landsman was joined by a Methodist minister and officials of AIDS Project Los Angeles, who said they hoped that the board will view the condom distribution plan strictly as a question of life and death.

The proposal is the most controversial of a dozen recommendations the board will consider today in an effort to expand the district’s AIDS education and awareness efforts. A task force, appointed by the district more than two years ago, initially proposed that condoms be made available to students on junior and senior high campuses, but the school board will only consider distributing them at senior high schools.

Parents, religious leaders and AIDS activists have packed community forums to wage often-raucous debates over the policy. And board members have had to weigh concerns about student health against assertions that condom distribution would usurp parental authority and leave the district vulnerable to lawsuits.

Leonard Bloom, AIDS Project Los Angeles’ chief executive officer, said the board will bear “the blame for the continued infection of young people in the school system” if it does not adopt a more aggressive educational and prevention policy in the district’s schools.

Teen-agers represent only a fraction of the AIDS cases reported in Los Angeles County over the last decade. However, the federal Centers for Disease Control estimate that 20% of all HIV-infected Americans are in their teens, and experts say the rate of infection among teen-agers is growing rapidly.

The Los Angeles school district includes some instruction about AIDS in seventh and 10th grades, and about half of the district’s 417 elementary schools deal with the topic in fifth or sixth grades. One of the proposals the board will consider today calls for earlier and more explicit instruction.

Abstinence is the form of AIDS prevention given the most emphasis in Los Angeles school curricula, and Landsman agreed that it is the surest way to avoid infection. But he said there must be an alternative offered to those teen-agers who choose to be sexually active.