Steady Course on AIDS

A legislative committee in Sacramento has set aside for further study a package of bills that would force drastic changes in California’s approach to AIDS.

The decision by Assemblyman Curtis R. Tucker (D-Inglewood) to look before his Health Committee leaps shows good judgment. There are too many uncertainties about the disease and its potential scope to warrant diverting attention from research on a cure, education on protections against the disease, and treatment of victims for whom education and cure will come too late.

Another reason to study the legislation very carefully is that one measure would scatter policy into areas that would hamper efforts to cope with AIDS and another would siphon money from already skimpy budgets to support programs that are meaningless in the overall AIDS picture.

One of two bills sponsored by Sen. John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights) would weaken assurances that the results of AIDS tests would be confidential. Public-health officials have insisted from the beginning that the threat of having test results spread around would drive high-risk populations away from testing, thus further increasing the danger of spreading the disease.

Another bill that was held over would have permitted mandatory testing of some patients at mental hospitals and all new prison inmates.

Doolittle advocates acting on AIDS now and asking questions later. The urgency implied in that approach has relevance for spending on research on vaccines and other products of the laboratory. Beyond that, it makes no sense.

For example, Times writer Robert Scheer reported recently that public-health officials now think that the risk of AIDS among heterosexuals was exaggerated in earlier projections. The earlier projections seemed as valid at the time as the new analysis, so the risk must remain just one moreof the uncertainties about AIDS. But if the new analysis of the pattern of AIDS stands the test of time, it would certainly reinforce the present belief of public-health specialists that mandatory testing is a misuse of time and money that should be devoted to research toward a cure.