The New York Times - September 22, 1983

The statement was made as part of a set of guidelines for doctors, nurses and other health personnel who are called upon to treat victims of the disease, which is often fatal.

Such personnel should not be required to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to keep AIDS patients alive, the panel said. Resuscitation should be required only if it can be done without touching the victim's lips, the panel said, adding that disposable plastic tubes should be kept at the bedside of AIDS patients toallow doctors to blow air into the lungs without mouth-to-mouth contact.

The guidelines, which have been adopted by several hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area, were published in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine and are similar to those published earlier by the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Balancing of Rights

The doctors on the panel noted that the decision to withhold or delay resuscitation raised moral and ethical questions. But they concluded, "One must balance the universal right of all patients to be resuscitated, if they so desire, against the right of health care workers to protect themselves from contracting a serious infectious illness, however remote that risk may be." AIDS is marked by the inability of the body's immune system to resist disease. The cause of the disorder is not known, but it is believed to stem from an unidentified virus. Federal health officials have said that homosexuals, abusers of injectable drugs, hemophiliacs and Haitians are most likely to get AIDS, which has been fatal to about 40 percent of its victims. It is apparently spread by sexual contact, contaminated needles and blood transfusions, and not by casual contact.

Dr. John E. Conte Jr., the principal author of the guidelines, said the most controversial question taken up by the panel was whether AIDS victims who work in hospitals should be allowed to keep their jobs.

Committee members could not agree, so they offered two alternatives: either reassign the AIDS workers so they have no contact with patients, or "consider each asymptomatic employee with AIDS on a case-by-case basis."

The guidelines, noting that some doctors and other hospital workers had been reluctant to administer appropriate care to AIDS victims, said, "There is no scientific reason for healthy personnel to be excused from delivering care to patients with AIDS."

Issue of Private Rooms

The panel said private rooms were not necessary for AIDS patients if they could control their bodily functions. But "it may be prudent" to give them rooms alone when they are available, the panel said.

It also recommended that AIDS patients wear masks if they are coughing and must leave their rooms.

Outpatients with the disease can share bathrooms and waiting rooms with other patients, the panel said. It also said strict care should be taken in disposing of needles, syringes and contaminated linen used by the patients.

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