Caution on AIDS Action

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will meet today to decide what to do about bathhouses frequented by gay men, where AIDS is spread by high-risk sexual activity. The issue is part of the growing problem of public policy and AIDS. Many people, gay and straight, are concerned that as the AIDS epidemic grows, actions will be taken in the name of public health that endanger civil liberties of homosexuals, who have only recently acquired these rights--in fact if not in law--and understandably worry about threats to them. The institution of mandatory blood testing in the military and of insurance screening for the AIDS virus heightens these concerns.

County health officials have recommended that the supervisors adopt a plan to regulate the bathhouses, establish guidelines for safe sex that is to be practiced there and close the places that do not follow the rules. According to the health officials, these steps would be sufficient to protect the public health, and the supervisors are expected to do at least that much.

But they may choose to go one step further and seek immediate closure of all bathhouses. That would be a mistake. It would signal a policy of blanket action against AIDS that is broader than necessary. It would open the door to more such action in the future and run the risk of making it possible for misplaced public anxiety to trample on individual rights without benefit to public health.

The state of Texas is talking about allowing the authorities there to quarantine some AIDS patients. If quarantine is deemed an appropriate response, who should be quarantined? All AIDS patients? All people whose blood tests positive for the AIDS antibody, indicating exposure to the virus? If the AIDS antibody test is deemed significant to protect the public health, will mandatory national blood testing be instituted?

This is clearly the wrong way to go. If restrictions are going to be imposed to combat the AIDS epidemic, they must be instituted with the utmost care on a case-by-case basis and with scrupulous regard to due process. The decisions must be based on the individual facts and not on politics. That is what should be done now with the bathhouses. Public policy should combat AIDS, not homosexuals.