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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!asente
From: asente@decwrl.UUCP (Paul Asente)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: info-AIDS request
Message-ID: <2921@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Aug-83 19:53:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2921
Posted: Sat Aug 20 19:53:45 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Aug-83 03:14:31 EDT
References: <1439@iedl02.UUCP>
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab, Los Altos, CA
Lines: 97


	    "It IS known, however, that no health care or laboratory workers
	    that have come in contact with AIDS patients have ever gotten
	    it unless they were already in a high risk group..."

    Bull shit!  My wife works in the operating room here, and if
    she should happen to get *the blood* from a person with AIDS
    on her, she would most probably contract AIDS herself.  ANY
    health maintenance personnel who come in contact with an AIDS
    victim are at risk.  As Larry said, let's have some knowledgeable
    people comment on the subject.  I would prefer not to have
    rumors, but hard facts, and the above is about the only hard fact
    I have. Others?
========
Ok, some facts.  Here are some quotations from a speech given by
Margaret Heckler, Health and Human Services Secretary.  The speech was
given at the U.S. Conference of Mayors last June.  True, these are not
from a medical source, but, alas, I don't suscribe to the New England
Journal of Medicine.

I turn over the floor to Ms. Heckler.
========
"Today I want to talk with you about an unusual and urgent situation.
My subject is a disease - a disease with two names.

"One name is AIDS:  Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

"The onter name is FEAR.  Not concern.  Not caution.  But unreasoned and
unsubstantiated fear."

... [More introduction]

"I am here to report on the facts about AIDS.  The facts alone are an
antidote to fear.  And the facts are telling us, more and more clearly -
not that AIDS is spreading throughout or population - but, to the contrary,
that the risk of AIDS is confined to identifiable factors.  For the
overwhelming majority of Americans, there appears to be little or no
risk of falling victim to this disease - in particular, through normal,
daily social contacts."

... [A summary of the effects of the disease and the high risk groups]

"There have been some occurances in people who do not actually belong
to one of the high risks groups.  But many of these cases are women who
are sexual partners of men with AIDS, or at high risk for AIDS.  Others,
tragically, have been babies born to those women, or to women who are
abusers of intravenous drugs.

"Still - we can state that the disease is spread almost entirely through
sexual contact - through the sharing of needles by drug abusers - and,
less commonly, through blood or blood products, including transmission
in-utero.  There should be no cause for fear among the public that they
may develop AIDS through casual contact with an AIDS patient or through
blood transfusions.

"These findings are crucial.  They are also reassurning.  Because even
while AIDS is frightening for those at risk, we can say with confidence -
and I repeat - that the overwhelming majority of Americans are NOT at
risk in their day-to-day activities, even in dealing with AIDS victims.

"An important indicator of this fact is that NO health personnel who
have been dealing with the disease have contracted it.  Let me
repeat that simple but all-important fact.  In all the years we
have treated this disease, not one single doctor or nurse or other
health care provider has contracted AIDS.  If it were an easily-transmitted
disease, like flu, we would certainly expect some cases among
health workers."

...  [She goes on to describe at some length what the government is
	doing in the area of research and treatment]
========
The news article that this message is in response to is an excellent
example of the fear that Ms. Heckler was referring to.

Mr. Browne is very mistaken if he thinks that his wife is in danger
in the operating room from having blood splashed upon her.  Perhaps
if it is his wife's practice to go into the operating room with
open wounds or to forego the normal precautions against accidentally
ingesting blood products there might be some risk.  But there is
no evidence to support the theory that she is at risk from contact.

Another point to consider is that over 600 people have died from AIDS.
Most of these people were embalmed after they died, and there have
been no cases of AIDS reported among morticians.  Recently in Santa
Clara county the body of a man who died of AIDS was refused at his
family's traditional mortuary (more fear) and was sent to an
establishment in San Francisco, where the people reported that the
only special precaution they took was to wear an extra pair of gloves.
(This is the standard procedure whenever a person has died of a
possibly infectious disease.)

In conclusion, it's not clear to me what this whole discussion is doing
in net.flame.  I don't see what there is to flame about concerning a
disease that has killed so many people.

	-paul asente
	    (decvax,ucbvax,allegra)!decwrl!asente