Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1983. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - May 27, 1983
Susan Chira
The union head, James Sipe, president of Council 82 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the guards were "scared to death" of catching the disease from inmates.
He said that some guards at one prison had been given hospital gowns and masks and had been briefed about the illness, but that the measures have not been adopted statewide.
Louis J. Ganim, a spokesman for the Department of Correctional Services, said such precautions were not necessary because medical evidence suggests that AIDS is transmitted either by sexual contact or intravenous drug use.
He said the State Health Department was helping search for a central hospital to house all state prison inmates suffering from AIDS, which destroys the body's ability to fight off diseases and is often fatal. AIDS victims may be contagious before symptoms appear. 38 Inmates Contracted Illness
The department now houses victims of AIDS in hospitals throughout the state or in prison infirmaries, Mr. Ganim said. "We're doing everything that can be done," he said. Since 1981, Mr. Ganim said, 38 inmates have contracted AIDS, and 17 have died. Officials have not yet confirmed whether a prisoner who recently died had been a victim of AIDS. There are 30,000 inmates in the state's prison system.
Mr. Sipe wrote to Labor Commissioner Lillian Roberts asking her to order the protective measures. A spokesman for the department, R. Victor Stewart, said the Commissioner would investigate whether the current method of handling prisoners with AIDS violated the state's Public Employees Safety and Health Law.
Mr. Sipe said the union would consider taking its case to court if its demands were not met, but ruled out a strike by prison guards. Richard R. Rowley, an attorney for the union, said that a recent study of young children who were suspected to have contracted AIDS suggests that the disease might be transmitted by "routine close contact."
At a Monday morning meeting of Governor Cuomo's Task Force on AIDS, officials said public fears of an epidemic had been exaggerated. Dr. John Hanrahan, a physician with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta who is investigating AIDS for the State Health Department, said that so far, victims had been homosexuals, Haitians, hemophiliacs or women who had sexual contact with victims of AIDS.
Most inmates who have AIDS, Dr. Hanrahan said, were intravenous drug users and probably contracted the disease before they had been imprisoned.
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