AIDS Quarantine: Caves for Lepers?
I used to think that Long Beach had its own share of Chicken Littles. But now I read that Lynwood is a center for those hysterical fowls, all ready to scream that the sky is falling!
How unthinking and insensitive can a public servant be without looking at the facts? It could be foolish chaos. And that is what happened recently when a Lynwood councilman called for an outright quarantine of AIDS victims. My, we haven’t come that far from those days in 1942 when Japanese were rounded up. Back to the biblical days of caves for the lepers.
The astute politician softened his original stance this week by declaring a state of emergency for fighting acquired immune deficiency syndrome. How humane and understanding he is. Of course he is. He knows that anything--like mosquitoes, fleas, bedbugs, lice and other blood-sucking insects--can spread AIDS, and we can’t have that.
And the great researcher got his information from a flyer by a group that called for a never-materialized rally to quarantine AIDS victims. He must have used the same research sources of the bogus nurse who advised the Long Beach City Council last May (that) gays could spread the disease at the Long Beach Gay Pride Festival last June by gamboling and frolicking in the bushes.
It took a Long Beach public health official to disclaim that accusation. .
--KEN MONDSHINE
Long Beach
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