Reaction Largely Positive to TV’s Look at AIDS in O.C. : Documentary: An educator demonstrating the use of condoms in ’48 Hours: the Killer Next Door’ says he received congratulatory calls.

The day after the airing of “48 Hours: the Killer Next Door,” a CBS program documenting the AIDS epidemic in Orange County, people involved in the production were basking in the generally positive and sympathetic reaction it received.

At Rossmoor Elementary School, where a teacher’s aide was shown calling his parents to tell them that he is infected with the HIV virus, only about five people called in response to the program, most of them simply seeking information, according to Principal Laurel Telfer.

“It’s been wonderful,” Telfer said. “We’ve had no adverse reaction of any kind. It’s turning out very nicely, and it’s given us a lot of confidence.”

Gary Costa, an AIDS educator who was shown in the program graphically demonstrating the use of condoms to a group of sorority sisters at Cal State Fullerton, said he got several calls from people congratulating him for his involvement in the documentary and asking for more information on the service he provides. “I wasn’t really surprised,” said Costa, who works for the AIDS Response Program in Garden Grove. “I’ve been doing this kind of work for a while and the response has been really favorable.”

And Joe Batchelor, a San Clemente resident whose wife died of AIDS three months ago and whose two young children are infected with the virus, said he was gratified by the response of several people who said they wanted to help him by donating money and clothes.

“People have been a lot more understanding than they were supposed to be,” he said. “I expected to be heavily discriminated against with the whole thing (but) people have been understanding. It makes me feel good.”

The most critical responses were aimed at Michael Kunce, president and chief executive officer of Armstrong Garden Centers Inc., a Glendora-based company that operates 21 nursery centers in California, who was shown in the television program describing as “simply a business decision” his company’s move to cap insurance claims by AIDS patients at $50,000 while leaving cancer claims unrestricted.

By midday Thursday, Kunce said, the company had received about 85 calls highly critical of the move.

But Kunce said his position was misrepresented by selective editing of the television segment. Capping AIDS claims at $50,000, he said, was part of an across-the-board slashing process aimed at saving the company’s health care plan in the wake of highly expensive AIDS claims that have doubled each year since 1989. In addition to AIDS, Kunce said, the company slashed health benefits for a number of other things including surgery, psychological counseling, dental services and medical prescriptions. The reason cancer claims were not restricted, he said, is that the company has never received one for more than $10,000.

“The problem was that we had become uninsurable,” he said. “I thought (the television program) pointed a finger at Armstrong Garden Centers when the real problem is with the state Legislature not (passing) laws requiring insurance companies to insure everyone on a community, state or national basis rather than the claims history of one individual or one company.”

Nationally, a CBS spokeswoman said, the program generated about 50 calls, far fewer than the number normally associated with a broadcast seen by 18.1 million people. About half the calls, said spokeswoman Donna Dees, were complaints about Costa’s graphic condom demonstration. The rest, she said, had to do with anger over an ad for a sitcom that was shown during the program and offers of help for Batchelor and his family.

All in all, Dees said, “it was a very mild response. Anytime we do anything of a sexual nature you get a huge--often negative--response from the heartland. In this case we didn’t.”