State Urged to Double Funds on AIDS Programs

A statewide AIDS panel meeting Friday in Santa Ana called for California officials to double their funding of programs that alert high-risk groups to the disease and are designed to slow its spread.

Bruce Decker, a gay-rights activist who heads the California AIDS Advisory Committee, said the group will ask the state Department of Health Services to allocate $10.2 million for such programs and increase the $28.7 million allocated in the 1986 state budget to fight the disease.

The committee, which holds monthly meetings around the state, serves as a watchdog on programs combatting acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Members of the group, which met in the Civic Center, are appointed by state officials.

“We have the finest AIDS program in the nation. We have made an enormous commitment,” Decker said. “That does not say that there are not enormous areas of need.”

In Orange County, 21 AIDS cases were reported in September, the highest total for any month this year, according to a county health official. A total of 112 cases have been reported in 1986.

“In the absence of a vaccine or improved treatment programs, the most prudent and logical expenditure of money should be in the area of prevention, information and education,” Decker said.

“While the governor supported a dramatic increase in those two years ago, the increase last year was modest compared to the need. We would recommend doubling the amount of money available for information and education contracts,” he said.

Funds would be dispersed to both county health departments and community-based organizations, he added.

The committee, which issued its full set of budgetary recommendations for 1986-87, also released a list of 10 publications dealing with AIDS that were disqualified from receiving state funds because they contained sexually explicit language.

Under California guidelines, all educational materials receiving funds from the state--including printed materials, videotapes and presentations--must be submitted to the Department of Health Services before reproduction or distribution.

“Materials that use slang or ‘street language’ or are explicitly suggestive will be disapproved,” department guidelines mandate.

The disqualification of the explicit pamphlets brought protests from several members of the audience, which was largely made up of AIDS support groups. They argued that the sanitized list of publications will prevent some targeted groups from receiving educational materials.

“If you turn it into . . . upper-class language, will it hit its intended audience?” a participant asked.

Decker, supporting the state’s position, replied: “There are some uses for public funds and some uses for private funds.”

The committee also ordered a study into streamlining the process that AIDS victims must go through to receive disability funds from the state.

“If you’re well enough to get through the approval process, you’re certainly too well to get disability. It’s ridiculous,” Decker said.

Other proposals included funding hospice programs, educating public school teachers about AIDS, increasing programs for drug abusers and starting preventive education programs in state prisons.