The New York Times - January 9, 1984

As with other new maladies, like Legionnaires' disease and toxic shock, the cause and means of prevention will doubtless be discovered in time. But while it still baffles, there is reason for a twinge of disquiet at the state of our defense against novel diseases.

True, the public is healthier and public health systems are more vigorous than ever before. But disease organisms have greater opportunity to travel and exploit new niches. Simple hygiene is a sure barrier to scourges of the past, like cholera or bubonic plague. But the great flu pandemic of 1918- 19, which swept away millions of people, could recur, a threat that prompted the massive swine flu inoculation campaign of 1976.

When AIDS first struck, compassion for the victims was mingled with relief among those outside the known risk groups. It seemed to strike mainly homosexual and bisexual men, users of intravenous drugs and hemophiliacs. That seems still true. But it also seems likely that the sexual partner of a risk group member can be stricken. In a recent case, the 71-year-old wife of a hemophiliac seems to have contracted AIDS from her husband, developing symptoms a year before he became ill. That suggests AIDS can be transmitted sexually by a person who has no obvious symptoms. If so, it could in theory spread into the population at large like other sexually transmitted diseases. Even without that possibility, the Administration had every reason to respond promptly when the disease was identified, in June 1981, by the Centers for Disease Control. It's far from clear that it did so.

A report by the House Committee on Government Operations criticizes the Public Health Service for turning down the centers' initial requests for extra funds to study the deadly disease. The health service contends it found few researchers interested in a disease that then afflicted so few people. But in that case its research arm, the National Institutes of Health, should have aroused more interest by advertising it had grants to give, and the Administration should have made funds available.

Although this has now been done, the money began to flow only recently, some two years after AIDS was discovered. The National Institutes' main duty is to fund long-term basic research, from which it should not be lightly diverted. But the intellectual challenge of AIDS, a disease involving both cancer and immunology, should have sparked more urgent attention and stronger leadership. AIDS does not spread like wildfire, but the next new disease could strike more quickly. A prompter, more coordinated Government response would be well advised.

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