Rights Bill for Disabled Passes Hurdle : Health: House conferees drop a provision allowing employers to transfer food handlers with AIDS. Opponents say it is not medically justified.

House negotiators on landmark civil rights legislation for the disabled agreed Monday to scrap a provision that would have allowed employers to transfer food handlers with the AIDS virus to other jobs if the public perceived a health risk.

The controversial amendment, deleted from the legislation by a narrow 12-10 vote of House conferees, was one of the last obstacles to final congressional approval of the bill and its signing into law by President Bush this week.

But Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and other Senate supporters of the AIDS provision were expected to fight to restore it when the compromise version of the disability bill reaches the Senate floor for a vote. That could delay final action until after next week’s Fourth of July recess.

“I’m sure he (Helms) will raise Cain,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a principal sponsor of the legislation. “I hope the White House will come in and support the conferees’ major actions.”

The President, who favors the underlying legislation, has not taken a position on the food handlers’ amendment. Louis W. Sullivan, his secretary of health and human services, has termed the amendment unnecessary and unjustified because medical evidence shows that the AIDS virus cannot be transmitted by touching food.

Passed by overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and House, the basic bill has been termed a “declaration of independence” for 43 million disabled Americans because it bars discrimination against them in employment, public services, public accommodations and telecommunications.

The unexpected House passage of the food handlers’ amendment, however, forced a Senate-House conference to reconcile differences between the two versions of the bill.

The bill’s sponsors said that the amendment would undercut the bill’s anti-discrimination thrust by sanctioning bias based on perception rather than reality.

“This may be the most important legislation that will pass this year,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). “I don’t think the Senate will want to derail this bill . . . for an amendment that is scientifically and medically unsound.”

Kennedy and other opponents of the provision argue that medical experts unanimously agree that the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, cannot be transmitted through food. The deadly disease is spread primarily by sexual contact, blood transfusions and contaminated hypodermic needles, public health authorities have said.

But Rep. Jim Chapman (R-Tex.), the amendment’s sponsor, insists that restaurant owners could face bankruptcy if customers perceived that HIV-infected employees threatened them.

Chapman’s amendment cleared the House by a vote of 199 to 187. In an extraordinary action, the Senate then instructed its conferees to support the House-passed provision after opponents lost a test of strength by a 53-40 vote. But since the amendment had been added in the House, it could be deleted by the House conferees before their Senate counterparts could vote on it.

Rep. Steve Bartlett (R-Tex.), a supporter of the amendment, said that the Senate vote put both houses of Congress on record in favor of it. He warned that restaurants “in small cities and towns around this country” could be “put out of business” if the amendment is not included.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Nev.) said that the amendment would protect restaurant patrons from the diseases that frequently afflict those whose immune systems are decimated by AIDS. “People with HIV are more susceptible to communicable diseases,” he said.

But Harkin said that the Chapman amendment had nothing to do with preserving public health. “There are times when you have to stand up and be courageous and legislate based on facts and not on perceptions or fear,” he said.

Two leading House Democrats--Chairman Jack Brooks of the Judiciary Committee and Chairman John D. Dingell of the Energy and Commerce Committee--joined eight Republican conferees in voting to retain the amendment. Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-N.Y.), top-ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, joined 11 Democrats who favored dropping it.