AIDS: Wise Guidelines

Amid wide public concern about contracting AIDS from persons who have it, the federal government has issued wise and thoughtful guidelines aimed at protecting the public health while dispelling the anxiety.

The Department of Health and Human Services has repeated once again that it is very hard to catch AIDS, and that there is no known instance of its having been transmitted by casual contact. As a result, the department says, there is no need for routine screening of workers for the AIDS virus, and no need to restrict even food handlers and health-care workers who have the disease. In short, there is no evidence that AIDS can be transmitted through normal contact in the workplace.

These guidelines, which are recommendations only and do not have the force of law, should make clear once again that the public at large is not at risk from AIDS, which destroys the body’s immune system and its ability to fight off disease.

If AIDS were spread through casual social contact, it would be uniformly distributed through the population instead of being almost exclusively concentrated in two high-risk groups--male homosexuals and intravenous drug users. Every shred of medical evidence about AIDS to date supports the conclusion that the only way to catch it is through high-risk sexual activity involving the exchange of body fluids or through infected blood. It cannot be transmitted through breathing, sneezing, coughing, touching or being in the same room with an infected person.

The federal guidelines do not put the rights of AIDS patients above the rights of the general public. The guidelines seek to protect the public health first and foremost. The recommendations are based on sound medical judgment, and have the support of medical and public-health associations. Those who seek tougher rules, such as Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), are using the AIDS epidemic as a cover for their political agendas against homosexuals, who account for three-quarters of the 14,739 cases of the disease that have been reported to date.

AIDS is a tragic disease that is taxing the frontiers of medical knowledge and showing no signs of abating. People in the high-risk groups should know by now what to do to reduce their chances of catching the disease. People outside the high-risk groups should take heart from the new federal guidelines and the underlying message that they convey: AIDS cannot be casually caught. As public agencies and local legislatures debate ways to control the disease, this conclusion cannot be repeated too often.