Decision on AIDS Measure Draws Appeals

State health director Kenneth Kizer and the followers of Marxist-turned-ultraconservative Lyndon H. LaRouche both appealed on Monday a Sacramento judge’s ruling altering the arguments to be published in the voter pamphlet for Proposition 64, the AIDS initiative sponsored by LaRouche’s political organization.

Kizer asked the state appeals court to remove his name from the ballot arguments submitted by the sponsors of Proposition 64, while the LaRouche backers asked for reinstatement of some medical claims that the Superior Court judge removed from the pamphlet Friday on the grounds they were false and misleading.

Dr. John Grauerholz, a Virginia physician with close ties to LaRouche, announced his side’s appeal at a Los Angeles news conference where he implied Soviet collaboration with U.S. public health officials to spread AIDS and passed out papers that accused a prominent New York researcher of terrorist activities in France.

Introduced as medical director of LaRouche’s Biological Holocaust Task Force, Grauerholz argued that the Sacramento judge overlooked studies that support the initiative sponsors’ belief that the AIDS virus may be transmitted by insects and through the air.

He offered as evidence letters published in the British medical journal The Lancet that reported the results of two studies. The studies have not received acceptance in the medical world, but Grauerholz said that is because the usual practice of scientific “peer review” is tainted by physicians who make sure that “anything which disagrees with the prevailing orthodoxy is not allowed to be published.”

Medical experts say that AIDS is transmitted through sexual relations with infected persons, the exchange of tainted blood or hypodermic needles, and from infected mothers to their newborns. LaRouche and his followers, who have advocated mass testing for the AIDS virus and quarantine of victims, have been denounced by the medical community in California.

Documents Make Accusations

Documents handed out to reporters at the news conference included attacks on Dr. Mervyn Silverman, the former San Francisco health director who testified against the LaRouche side in the Sacramento case, and Dr. Mathilde Krim, a prominent New York medical researcher. Silverman is president of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, a major fund-raising group whose chairman is actress Elizabeth Taylor. Krim is the group’s co-chair.

Krim was described as “born into a wealthy Swiss family” and accused of working with a terrorist group “smuggling guns in southern France.” Her husband, Arthur Krim, the chairman of Orion Pictures, was described as a close friend of industrialist Armand Hammer and as “a top figure in the Hollywood mafia.”

Under questioning by reporters, Grauerholz said that the Soviets may have started the AIDS plague, and certainly are glad that it is spreading. He said that U.S. health officials have aided the Soviets by not stopping AIDS, and added: “I would certainly wonder about Dr. Silverman precisely because of his association with Dr. Krim.”

Conspiracy Theories

LaRouche, who has run for President three times, has a reputation for circulating convoluted conspiracy theories, and Silverman dismissed the remarks as laughable.

“The things with the Russians are totally bizarre . . . sheer nonsense,” Silverman said.

The Krims were in New York but could not be reached for comment.

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is a lethal disorder of the immune system. Proposition 64 would classify the condition of carrying AIDS antibodies as a “communicable” disease, and the sponsors say it should bar infected persons from work in restaurants or attending school.

Two UC Berkeley professors plan to release a study today that contends the measure would have a huge effect on the California economy. More than 100,000 would lose their jobs, and the adverse economic impact could total $2.3 billion the first year, according to a summary of the study by John Quigley of the School of Public Policy and Robert Anderson, an assistant professor of economics and math.

Kizer said that the proponents were not authorized to use his name.