Bill Would Ease Admission of Foreigners With AIDS : Health: Backers hope to prevent a boycott of a conference on the ailment. They call for a review of the list of diseases used to exclude visitors to U.S.

Moving to head off an embarrassing boycott of next June’s international AIDS conference here, Rep. J. Roy Rowland (D-Ga.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would give the secretary of health and human services the authority to liberalize restrictions on admitting foreigners infected with the AIDS virus.

The bill would direct HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan to review the list of “dangerous contagious diseases” used to exclude foreigners from the United States and to issue a revised list within 30 days.

Officials of the U.S. Public Health Service, which is part of HHS, have already said they do not believe AIDS and infection with the underlying human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) should bar foreigners from visiting the United States. HIV cannot be transmitted through casual contact.

Although the bill drew the immediate support of the National Commission on AIDS, of which Rowland is a member, the Administration was noncommittal.

“We do not support the bill at this time, but we are reviewing it,” said a high-level spokesman at HHS.

The spokesman stressed that the lack of immediate support should not be construed as opposition. “The secretary feels strongly that this is an important issue that needs to be addressed,” the spokesman added.

“It’s a little premature” to comment, added Alixe Glen, deputy White House press secretary.

HIV infection was added to the list of dangerous contagious diseases in 1987 in an amendment offered by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and enacted by Congress overwhelmingly. AIDS had already been placed on the list--which also includes syphilis, chancroid and infectious tuberculosis--by the Ronald Reagan Administration.

The law’s main intent was to bar HIV-infected immigrants from moving to the United States and becoming a burden on the public health system. But the law’s impact on travelers was dramatized last year when a Dutch citizen visiting the United States for an AIDS conference was arrested at the border after he was found to be carrying the drug AZT.

Since then, the Administration has come up with procedures, said to ensure confidentiality, under which HIV-infected foreigners can apply for waivers to visit the United States. But scientists, public health officials and AIDS activists have called the policy demeaning and discriminatory, and they have launched a boycott of the Sixth International Conference on AIDS to dramatize their unhappiness.

Already, the French and Swiss health ministries have withdrawn their delegations, and the European Parliament has called on all European scientists not to attend. The State Department, fearing what one official calls “an international embarrassment,” has been urging the White House to liberalize the policy.

“We are hopeful the Rowland bill will be enacted,” said Dana Van Gorder, a spokesman for the conference, which 14,000 scientists, public health officials and other AIDS workers were expected to attend. “The Administration’s support will be critical in determining whether the bill will move in time to prevent disruption of our conference.”

Staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this story from Washington.