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From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.motss,net.med,net.kids,net.singles
Subject: Re: Politics of AIDS, of Foster Care
Message-ID: <858@burl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 12:37:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: burl.858
Posted: Tue Sep 10 12:37:12 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 05:27:56 EDT
References: <1551@bbncca.ARPA>
Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 52
Xref: watmath net.motss:2036 net.med:2341 net.kids:1926 net.singles:9184
Summary: 

In article <1551@bbncca.ARPA> rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) writes:
>AIDS Politics
>=============
>And the executive branch & a local judiciary contemplate repression: 
>Health & Human Services "will...recommend that labs inform blood donors
>who show possible signs of AIDS that their names may be released to
>outsiders."  The Florida Supreme Court is "considering a suit that could
>open up the [blood donor] records to public inspection."
>
It seems to me that the methods of AIDS transmission, while not 100% certain,
are quite well enough known that this should be unnecessary.  Hopefully
more info to People_What_Be_In_Charge will help this situation.
>
>This represents a drastic broadening & worsening of the situation.  Only
>weeks ago the American Red Cross retreated from its historic commitment
>to donor confidentiality by allowing its local chapters to decide whether
>they'd conform to a military demand to hand over HTLV-III bloodtest results
>for all military personnel.
>
Ridiculous!  If the military wants to test all their people; that's fine.
If the military wants to give all HTLV-III positives an honorary medical
discharge (I'm talking major paranoia here), then that is fine, too; but
they should NOT be able to \demand/ anything from Red Cross.

>Finally, "the American Council of Life Insurers Board of Directors,
>meeting this week in California, is likely to recommend that firms use
>the HTLV test to assess the risk of an applicant..."
>
This one I totally agree with -- what's the difference between this and
people with high bloodpressure, diabetes tendencies, etc.?  It is the
insurance companies' right to assign risk based on present and/or
highly-possible disease.

>It now looks like AIDS policy will be determined by politics, not medical
>or legal guidelines.  It's time to write & lobby our representatives and
>maybe contribute to political action, to prevent gross public & private
>violations of rudimentary civil rights & liberties and professional ethics.
>
AIDS policy will be determined by accurate and widespread info from believable
sources (i.e., by quelling paranoia with facts from people that are respected;
major newscasters, for example).  Until we get that info and get it widely
disseminated, AIDS policy will be determined by paranoia and misinformation.
I cringed when I saw the very informative article in TIME magazine, information
content looked quite good, but there on the first page was a BIG picture of
the guy whose wife and child had caught AIDS from him.  I know TIME, Inc.
is on the net -- if anyone sees the author(s) of that article please tell
them I think they should be shot for such yellow journalism.
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
			...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj