Beverly Hills School Board Calls for Creation of Medical Advisory Panel to Review AIDS Cases

The Beverly Hills Board of Education has called for the creation of a panel of medical experts to review the cases of any students who contract the deadly AIDS virus and to recommend whether they should be barred from school.

Assistant Supt. Walther Puffer said that the advisory panel is being considered as a “precautionary measure.” He said he knows of no Beverly Hills students with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

“We like to be prepared,” said school board member Fred Stern. “We see AIDS as a possibility. It could happen in Beverly Hills. There is no reason to think we are exempt from it.”

A policy creating the advisory panel is expected to receive final approval from the board March 11. The panel will be made up of three to five doctors who will volunteer their services. The panel will review each case and recommend to the board whether a student with AIDS should be excluded from classes.

The board, according to the policy, will have the “power to exclude any student that the health advisory panel has determined is a carrier or may be a carrier of a contagious or infectious disease or has any disability that may result in harm to other students or staff.”

Puffer said that the policy will help the district avoid the potential conflicts experienced in communities across the country when students with AIDS have attempted to attend school. It is an attempt to “develop something that’s medically sound and legally appropriate,” he said.

Mark Egerman, a board member, said the district developed the policy because it was time to “re-examine the district’s standards on all contagious diseases, not just AIDS.”

“What makes AIDS different is the fact that it is a deadly disease,” he added. “We wanted to have a panel that would remove the issue from lay considerations. People don’t always know the medical facts.”

Supt. Leon Lessinger said the panel is being formed to ease fears in the community and because the courts have not settled the issue of whether the disease represents a danger in the classroom.

“There is a lot of concern that we don’t know enough yet about the disease,” Lessinger said. “The panel is protection for both sides.”

Egerman said the issue of whether to bar a student with AIDS depends on whether the student is contagious.

“Our responsibility is first and foremost to protect all the children in the district,” he said. “If the child is contagious, he should not go to school because AIDS is an extremely dangerous disease. But if the student is not contagious, I don’t see why he or she should not go to class.

“For example, I would have no problem sending a child to school who has cancer. Cancer is not contagious that way.”

Scientists theorize that AIDS is transmitted through body fluids, including sperm, saliva and blood. High-risk groups include sexually active homosexual or bisexual men, intravenous drug users, Haitians, hemophiliacs and sex partners of people in these groups.

The board was expected to give final approval of the policy last week but instead asked the staff to investigate how other districts have handled the problem.

Stern asked the staff to contact the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, which recently was ordered by an Orange County Superior Court judge to reinstate an 11-year-old student whose blood contains the AIDS antibodies.

Dr. Helen Hale, director of student medical services in the Los Angeles Unified School District, said Beverly Hills’ proposal is “ideal.” She compared it to a similar plan in New York City where cases are reviewed by medical experts.

In Los Angeles, she said, AIDS is treated like any other contagious disease--each case is handled on an individual basis. However, she refused to outline the plan “because the issue is too sensitive.”

Officials in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District said they are developing a plan to deal with students with AIDS. An official in the Culver City Unified School District said it has not yet developed a plan.