U.S. Funding, Policy on AIDS

Re the article titled “Progress, Pessimism Confront AIDS Experts” (July 19). I am extremely bothered by the section of the article concerning prostitute experimentation. It has raised the following questions:

1. How were the prostitutes who were in this research experiment actually selected?

2. What was the number of prostitutes who participated in the experiment?

3. Was the lethal nature of the AIDS disease fully explained to each of them?

4. Were the prostitutes who received the placebo informed that the conduct, (specifically the lack of condom use by their sexual partners) which the experiment obviously required, would probably result in their infection with the AIDS disease?

5. Were those prostitutes who used the contraceptive sponge containing the spermicide informed that they ran an increased risk of infection with the AIDS virus?

6. What are the present occupations and conduct of the prostitutes who were infected with the AIDS virus?

7. How did the researchers regard these human experimental prostitutes knowing that their danger of being infected with a lethal virus was increased and they then could infect others?

HARRY E. ANDERSEN

Huntington Beach