LaRouche AIDS Appeal Misleads, Judge Decides

A Superior Court judge in Sacramento ruled Friday that two statements submitted by followers of extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche are false and should be stricken from the voter pamphlet for Proposition 64, the AIDS measure placed on the Nov. 4 ballot by LaRouche supporters.

However, the judge overruled Secretary of State March Fong Eu and allowed the LaRouche group to keep the name of state Health Director Ken Kizer in its ballot arguments. Kizer, who has declined to announce his position on the initiative and has demanded that his name be removed from the ballot argument, said Friday he will appeal.

A third disputed statement--asserting that AIDS can be passed through “casual contact”--was removed from the voter pamphlet in a stipulated agreement between Eu and the LaRouche-sponsored proponents.

How acquired immune deficiency syndrome is transmitted is central to the public debate over Proposition 64. It would make the condition of being infected with the AIDS virus reportable to health officials. About 300,000 people in the state believed to be infected but not ill with AIDS would come under health laws that bar school attendance and work in food establishments. Most medical officials say that is unnecessary and have opposed the initiative.

After an all-morning hearing, Judge James T. Ford sided with state attorneys and medical experts who contended that some statements in the ballot argument were intended to mislead voters.

Specifically, the judge ordered Eu to delete two sentences from a rebuttal statement filed by the Prevent AIDS Now Initiative Committee (PANIC), the LaRouche-sponsored group leading the campaign for Proposition 64. The rebuttal answers the official opposition argument signed by Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), his November reelection opponent, Rep. Ed Zschau (R-Los Altos), and Dr. Gladden V. Elliott, president of the California Medical Assn.

Disputed Wording

The disputed wording asserted that “AIDS is not ‘hard to get’; it is easy to get” and that “potential insect and respiratory transmission has been established by numerous studies.” In fact, the prevailing scientific consensus is that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact and that no reputable studies have found evidence of insect or airborne transmission.

In nearly all cases, the virus has been transmitted through sexual contact, the injection of contaminated blood or from an infected mother to her newborn child, medical experts say.

Frequent sexual relations with an infected person, especially if there is damage to the anal or vaginal tissue or if one of the partners has a venereal disease, is thought to increase the risk. High-risk groups in the United States include homosexual and bisexual men, intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs.

After accepting written testimony from Bay Area AIDS experts, including Dr. Mervyn F. Silverman, president of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, Ford said the disputed statements seemed intended to create a “dread, awful aura” about the lethal disease and were not supported by the facts.

‘Must Avoid Instilling Fear’

An attorney for the LaRouche side noted that the ballot argument was signed by two physicians. But Ford ruled that the statements contained only casual opinions that had not stood the rigors of examination in the medical profession.

“We must avoid instilling fear,” the judge said. “There is no evidence AIDS is transmitted by casual contact.”

Ford permitted the LaRouche group to include Kizer’s name after finding that the ballot statement does not claim that Kizer backs Proposition 64.

“Many health officials are demanding public health measures,” the statement said. “Dr. Kizer, California’s top health official, has called for more reporting and testing powers.”

In a statement Friday afternoon, Kizer said he would appeal.

“As California health director, I wish to make it very clear that I have never endorsed Proposition 64,” Kizer said. “I feel as strongly about this ballot argument issue as any public health matter that has come to my attention during my time as state health director.”

LaRouche is the Virginia-based publisher and self-proclaimed leading economist of the 20th Century whose followers stunned the Democratic Party by winning two key statewide party nominations in Illinois last spring. His operations are under investigation by a federal grand jury in Boston probing massive credit card fraud and in several states for alleged hard-sell fund raising.