Local News in Brief : AIDS Education Backed
State and federal health officials Monday told an Assembly Health Committee hearing at Inglewood City Hall that expanded educational programs, not widespread mandatory testing, are the best way to slow the spread of the AIDS virus.
Representatives of community-based organizations serving the Latino, black and homosexual communities in Los Angeles were among those urging lawmakers to resist political pressure for mandatory AIDS testing in California.
“Widespread testing is not valuable,” said Dr. Michael Ascher, deputy chief of Department of Health Services’ Viral Disease Laboratory in Berkeley. The number of new AIDS cases likely to be found by testing the general population is so small that it is not worth the cost, Ascher said.
Assemblyman Curtis Tucker (D-Inglewood), chairman of the committee, called widespread mandatory AIDS testing “ridiculous,” but said that as the 1988 election year approaches, there is “a danger of over-legislating” as lawmakers seek to exploit public concern about AIDS.
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