Senate OKs Reassigning Food Handlers With AIDS

The Senate on Wednesday endorsed a change in a major civil rights bill to allow AIDS sufferers to be reassigned from food-handling duties.

The vote was an election-year victory for Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and a setback for Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.). Helms is seeking a fourth term in office.

On a voice vote, the Senate approved a motion by Helms to have the Americans with Disabilities Act include an exemption that would allow employers to reassign infected workers from food-handling jobs.

Helms’ motion instructs Senate negotiators to accept a House-adopted exemption when they work out a final version of the bill later this month.

The House approved the exemption 199 to 187 last month before it finally passed the entire disabilities act 403 to 20. The Senate passed the bill 76 to 8 last September.

The amendment “goes right at the heart and soul of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “To pass legislation . . . in spite of the clear and convincing, overwhelming medical evidence that HIV, that AIDS, cannot be transmitted either through air or through food, is simply to codify ignorance.”

But Helms, renewing the House debate, argued that scientific knowledge and public perception clash. He expressed doubts over the certainty of knowledge about how AIDS is transmitted and argued that the amendment was needed because of public ignorance.

“We’ve been told over and over again . . . AIDS is supposedly not communicable by food or drink or casual contact,” Helms said. “But you try telling that to John Q. Public.”