Compassion and Fear Over AIDS

Re: the July 6 editorial, “The Wrong Charge,” regarding Joseph Markowski, the 29-year-old drifter who knew he had AIDS, yet donated blood and solicited sex. You feel that he shouldn’t be prosecuted for attempted murder.

First, do you know for a fact that no one received AIDS contaminated blood from Markowski? He did admit to selling blood under a variety of aliases. While it is true that donated blood is normally tested for the AIDS virus, it is widely known that this test is far from being 100% accurate.

We have testing and record keeping for syphilis and gonorrhea. Why not for this fatal disease? I believe that if this were a mainly heterosexual disease, we would have had mandatory testing long ago.

L. MULHALL

La Verne