AIDS Tests

The National Research Council’s recommendation that every baby born in the United States should be “anonymously” tested for AIDS antibodies seems guaranteed to offend just about everybody in exchange for statistics of, at least, marginal utility (Part I, Feb. 9). Were I the parent of a newborn child, I would demand, as an absolute right, to know of any condition which represented a potential health hazard to my child. Anything less would strike me as game playing of the worst sort.

This “recommendation” makes me wonder just how much the council members, for all their medical and scientific expertise, know about how real flesh-and-blood human beings feel and operate.

HORACE M. GAIMS

Los Angeles