oadways into anti-AIDS campaigners. Betel nuts, chewed as a mild stimulant, are popular among truck and taxi drivers -- and vendors often compete by staffing roadside sales booths with young women in bikinis, translucent blouses or nurses' uniforms with miniskirts.
The government plans to have the women give their customers boxes containing condoms and an AIDS warning, Yang Shih-yang, an official at the Center for Disease Control, said yesterday.
"Research done from Africa to Himalayan countries has proved one thing: The AIDS viruses are spread along the highways," Yang said. He was apparently referring to truckers and cab drivers engaging in prostitution or sex with multiple partners.
However, Yang said the plan is still under study because authorities do not want the act to accidentally promote the sale and chewing of betel nuts -- which many physicians say could cause cancer.
In recent years, the provocatively dressed roadside saleswomen called "betel nut girls" have become part of Taiwanese culture.
Several of the saleswomen, interviewed recently by Sanli Cable News, dismissed the anti-AIDS proposal as too sexually suggestive, and said it could expose them to risk of assault.
The plan "might give people wild thoughts," said one, whose name was not given.
Officials say AIDS cases have been rising by about 3,000 a year in Taiwan, a large island off southern China with 23 million people.
In an attempt to contain the spread of the HIV virus, authorities recently began a program under which convenience stores distribute free needles for drug addicts.
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