Kemp Urges $1.9 Billion in Extra Funds to Fight AIDS

Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) became the first 1988 presidential candidate to make a comprehensive proposal on the sensitive issue of AIDS on Wednesday, calling for a three-year, $1.9-billion program of expanded testing, counseling, education and tracing of potential carriers of the fatal disease.

An aide said the proposed new federal grants to the states would be “on top of” $533 million earmarked for AIDS programs in President Reagan’s fiscal 1988 budget.

Kemp’s plan, which moves beyond a recent Reagan proposal by urging wider disclosure of blood test results, drew immediate praise from conservative activists and qualified criticism from the head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“This represents the first recognition that AIDS will be a major issue in the presidential campaign,” said Paul Weyrich, head of Coalitions for America, a conservative lobbying group before which Kemp presented his proposal.

Saying that “America’s future is threatened by a silent killer that is stalking our society,” Kemp suggested that “routine testing” for the AIDS virus be expanded beyond blood donors and members of the military to “known risk groups.” As examples, he cited outpatients at venereal disease clinics and drug rehabilitation centers and persons arrested for drug use or prostitution.

In addition, Kemp recommended routine testing for marriage license applicants, hospital patients and people in occupations who could spread the disease, such as health care workers. He also encouraged autologous blood donation--that is, giving blood for one’s own later use.

Kemp aide John Buckley said the term “routine testing” meant that testing would generally be done but that individuals who were strongly opposed could decline without legal penalty.

Buckley added that Kemp supports Reagan’s new program of mandatory testing for federal prisoners and would-be immigrants.

However, Kemp, moving significantly beyond a package of proposals advanced by Reagan in May, recommended that positive blood tests for AIDS be reported to public health officials. Kemp said officials then could prevent spread of the disease by contacting sexual partners of those who have tested positive, informing them that they have been exposed to infection.

Addressing privacy concerns, Kemp noted that the names of tested persons are kept confidential in current “contact tracing” programs involving syphilis and hepatitis B.

He attacked a California law that prohibits the contacting of sexual partners or the notification of medical personnel of a positive AIDS test, saying the statute is “a threat to public safety.”

The privacy law was pushed by the medical community two years ago to encourage voluntary testing for the AIDS virus, but the state Senate approved legislation last week that would allow wider disclosure of test results without an individual’s consent.

Kemp proposed that states meet certain conditions in order to receive matching federal grants for AIDS programs. They would have to institute contact tracing, shut public bathhouses (which are widely used by homosexuals), enforce prostitution and drug laws and enact statutes making it a crime “to knowingly infect someone else with the AIDS virus.”

Also, federally funded sex education programs would have to include “discussions of right and wrong in addition to the medical facts.”

Groups representing homosexuals--the largest population group victimized by AIDS--expressed concern about Kemp’s proposals.

“The fact that a conservative Republican is willing to spend this kind of money demonstrates the seriousness of the issue,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Unfortunately, his proposals, particularly in the testing area, will drive away the very people we need to reach.”