Lawmaker, Scientist Back Voluntary AIDS Screening

Voluntary screening for exposure to the AIDS virus drew support Sunday from a legislator and a scientist who have studied the generally fatal disease, but both contended that compulsory mass testing could do more harm than good.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, recommended voluntary testing but warned during a television interview that any compulsory testing system must protect the confidentiality of patient files or “drive this whole disease underground.”

Detects Antibodies

The blood test detects antibodies to the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome but does not indicate whether an individual has or will contract the disease. A person who tests positive, however, is presumed to be infected and infectious to others.

Unless there is complete confidentiality, Waxman said, a person who volunteers to be tested and has a positive blood test “may not have AIDS and they may never get AIDS (but) they could lose their jobs, lose their insurance, lose everything.”

Dr. Thomas Vernon, executive director of the Colorado Health Department who appeared with Waxman on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” called confidentiality “the heart of the issue” and noted that public health systems long have kept confidential files on about 50 communicable diseases.

Meeting Scheduled

Waxman said that decisions on testing certain population groups, such as applicants for marriage licenses, should be made by the Atlanta-based federal Centers for Disease Control, which has scheduled a meeting on testing proposals for Feb. 24 and 25.

Fears Alienation

Vernon agreed, and noted that the question of mandatory testing of high-risk groups, which have consisted primarily of homosexual males and addicts who inject drugs intravenously, raises the problem of alienating the groups most at risk.

Waxman said public health officials report that “among the gay community, life-style changes have been dramatic.”

“What worries me with the heterosexual population,” Waxman said, “is that it would be a tragedy if they have to wait until they know people dying of the disease before they understand that they’ve got to take precautions to stop the spread of AIDS.”

AIDS destroys the immune system, making the individual powerless against otherwise rare infections and cancers. The virus can also invade the central nervous system, causing severe neurological disorders. It is commonly transmitted through sexual intercourse, the sharing of unsterilized hypodermic needles and by women to their fetuses during pregnancy.

In the six years since AIDS first was recognized in the United States, more than 29,000 cases have been reported, and more than half of those have ended in fatalities. The number of cases has roughly doubled each year, and the disease has spread from homosexual men and intravenous drug users to heterosexual men and women.

Survey Cites Rise in Cases

An indication that AIDS may be increasing faster in the public at large than in the closely regulated populations of the nation’s prisons came Sunday from a Justice Department agency, the National Institute of Justice. It said that a survey of 82 federal, state and local institutions showed that AIDS cases in prisons and jails increased 61% in the 11 months ending last September, while the national rate rose 79%.

Over the same 11 months, the institute reported, there were 1,232 AIDS cases and 254 AIDS deaths among inmates in prisons and jails. It said that the principal problem was in four systems: those maintained by the states of New York, New Jersey and Florida, and by New York City. Together, they accounted for 70% of all AIDS cases among inmates. In 24 systems, no cases were reported.