The HIV test has its sticking points

RE "AIDS test consent at issue in Mass." (Page A1, Sept. 1): Each day in Massachusetts, first-responders such as police, EMTs, and emergency room staff expose themselves to lacerating bites, needle punctures, and contamination from bodily fluids splashed by violent, drugged, or psychotic people whose behavior has triggered 911 calls. A wider circle of teachers, correctional officers, and shelter staff also face the frightening uncertainty of exposure to HIV infection from people whose written consent is legally required before blood tests can be authorized. Current state law is neither humane nor sensible. It needlessly heightens the anxiety of dedicated professionals whose chosen occupations bring them into daily contact with society's most desperate and dangerous. The right to privacy should be balanced with freedom from fear when there is an urgent need to access information, especially when gaining that access can result in professionals needing powerful counteracting medications with troubling side-effects. We cannot live at arm's length from such realities and unthinkingly obstruct a rapid and justifiable response under circumstances that, thankfully, most of us will never have to face.

THOMAS F. SCHIAVONI
Boston

The writer is a lawyer who represents mental health hospitals.

AS SOMEONE who has HIV, but who emphatically does not have AIDS, I object to the headline "AIDS test consent at issue." The test in question is an HIV test. Maybe this seems like a minor distinction to some, but it's very important to anyone who is HIV-positive. Having HIV does not mean you have AIDS. It means that you've been infected by the virus that causes AIDS, but that with proper medical treatment that virus can be controlled just like many other diseases and you can live an essentially normal life. To confuse the two on the front page of the Globe both perpetuates the myth that having the virus is the same as having the disease, which many still interpret as a death sentence, and feeds into the idea that people who are HIV-positive are virulent disease-carriers who should be treated as pariahs.

As an important national newspaper, you should be trying to clear up such misunderstandings in the public mind. Your headline does the opposite.

H. BENNETT
Orleans