Miami Herald - Thursday, March 28, 1985
Beverly Mills, Herald Staff Writer

While the test, called an HTLV-III screen, is effective in eliminating contaminated blood in a blood bank, local gay-rights leaders said Wednesday it is not reliable enough to be of any use to individuals.

Broward County health department officials announced plans Tuesday for an HTLV-III screening clinic to ensure that the county blood supply is protected against acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Health department director Dr. Charles Konigsberg and other health officials are convinced that some people who think they may have AIDS will try to get an HTLV-III test at a blood bank.

Konigsberg wants to set up the new testing clinic so there is some place, besides a blood bank, where a person who wants the test can get it.

The screening test only shows if a person has been exposed to the AIDS virus, not whether he has the disease or will develop it. The test does not always work. About 30 percent of the time, people who have been exposed to AIDS do not show positive test results.

If local blood banks are the only place a person can get a test, and if that person donates contaminated blood that isn't caught, AIDS could be spread, Konigsberg said.

"We're not trying to sell the testing as the proper thing to do," Konigsberg said. "We share the skepticism about the whole process. Our concern is trying to keep the blood supply safe."

Broward has an unofficial count of 100 AIDS cases, but the health department only has complete information on 74 of them. Of these 74 victims, 52 are gay or bisexual men, 8 are Haitian and 6 are intraveneous drug abusers.

People who stand the greatest risk of contracting AIDS are gay men, recent Haitian entrants, intraveneous drug abusers and hemophiliacs. AIDS cripples the immune system, leaving victims susceptible to deadly infections and cancer.

Broward's gay leaders say they don't trust the test because of its poor accuracy rate. Gays also worry about breeches of confidentiality, said Karl Clark, president of a local gay rights group.

"A lot of people are afraid a computer list of the test results will be set up," Clark said. "We don't exactly trust the federal government. We know how the FBI and CIA have investigated people in the past."

A Haitian doctor doesn't think the Haitian community will seek the screeing test at the blood banks or anywhere else.

"I don't think they'll go because the Haitian community doesn't consider itself a high-risk group," Dr. Valcourt Frage of Pompano Beach said. "It would outrage the community to even suggest they go to a clinic."
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