HEALTH WATCH : Expertise, Helms-Style

Sen. Jesse Helms wants to slash federal AIDS spending because sufferers contract the disease through “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.” Just what makes the North Carolina Republican an expert on the link between health and personal responsibility?

Helms’ home state produces about 600,000 pounds of tobacco a year, doing its bit for lung cancer, heart ailments and other diseases around the world. If the senator really believed the implication of his statement on AIDS spending, he would suggest huge cuts in research funding for those diseases. Of course he won’t and shouldn’t suggest that. The point is, many diseases are caused or aggravated by behavior--what people eat, drink or smoke or what they do in the bedroom--but that’s no reason to deny help to the sick.

Helms, spewing ignorance for political effect, is out of touch with reality. North Carolina has one of the fastest growing AIDS death rates, up 656% between 1981 and 1992. Only three state are worse in rates of cerebrovascular disease deaths and only 12 in chronic liver disease deaths.

AIDS does not discriminate by age, race, gender or sexual orientation. And the virus that causes it can turn every unsuspecting victim into an asymptomatic and contagious carrier for a decade or longer. Drastic cuts in funding for AIDS research would only ensure the rapid progress of the epidemic.

Once again, it appears that Helms lacks the ability to ascend from the most primitive and discredited thinking about AIDS.