The New York Times - December 7, 1985
Joseph F. Sullivan

Rather than fighting to keep young AIDS victims out of school, parents and school officials should be educating high school students about the genuine risk factors connected with the disease, according to state health officials.

It is probable that 20,000 students and teachers in New Jersey have been exposed to the HTLV 3 virus that causes AIDS but this does not mean they will get the disease or transmit the virus, the participants were told. #1 Percent a National Estimate The health officials said that this figure, based on national estimates that 1 percent of the population has been exposed, should not inspire a demand for a screening program to discover those who have been infected and to remove them from the schools.

"We can't create a segment of lepers," said the deputy state health commissioner, Dr. John Rutledge. "If we bar them from the schools, landlords would soon want them out of their buildings and employers would remove them from the workplace."

The Bedminster School Board recently adopted a policy requiring the school staff to be screened for the presence of the virus, according to Octavius T. Reid Jr., the executive director of the New Jersey School Boards Association, which sponsored the daylong conference on AIDS at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

Mr. Reid said he expected there would be additional pressure in school districts across the state for some sort of screening program.

The real risk group, the educators were told, is made up of high school students who are beginning to experiment with drugs and sex, and not with the classmates of young AIDS patients who have been deemed otherwise healthy enough to attend class.

Dr. Rutledge said that screening the state's 2.2 million students for the HTLV 3 antibody would cost $25 million "and it wouldn't mean anything because it would have to be done again two months later, and again four after that, and so on."

The director of the division of allergy, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Dr. James Oleske, said there was a danger of a "witch hunt" mentality coloring decisions about how to deal with AIDS patients in the classroom.

Under state guidelines, an AIDS victim is entitled to the same educational opportunities as other students. ---- Policy on AIDS Examined Scholarly discussions of past bias against homosexuals and minority groups were mixed yesterday with calls for more activism and education at a conference on public policy and the AIDS epidemic.

About 200 politicians, scholars and other individuals met at New York University to consider the implications for AIDS victims of such subjects as the discrimination against victims of venereal disease in the early 20th century and the persecution of homosexuals and Jews in Nazi Germany. Other sessions offered the latest medical information on the disease.

The conference - sponsored by the Lesbian and Gay Law Students of N.Y.U. and the Civil Liberties Crisis Coalition, a group of lawyers and community activists - was aimed at countering public panic over the AIDS issue by presenting both historical analysis and the latest medical information.

"We're acutely conscious that history is looking at us," said David Fleischer, a Manhattan lawyer and co-chairman of the event. "The quality of our time is going to be judged by how we deal with AIDS."

Speakers, including the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, senior minister of the Riverside Church, and Representative Ted Weiss, stressed that fear of AIDS should not justify abridging the civil liberties of homosexuals, intravenous drug users and other victims.

851207
NYT851207