The New York Times - November 8, 1986
Ronald Sullivan

Mayor Koch said he would support such a demonstration.

Frances Tarlton, a Health Department spokesman, said the possession or use of hypodermic needles was a criminal offense in the state. But she added that the Health Commissioner, Dr. David Axelrod, was empowered under state health regulations to conduct a limited demonstration project that used them.

Ms. Tarlton said there were no plans to begin any demonstration, much less any consideration of how it would be conducted.

A spokesman for Governor Cuomo, Kathleen Meehan, said there would be no comment until Mr. Cuomo considered the issue. She said Mr. Cuomo has previously opposed dispensing needles to drug addicts.

Avoiding 'Medical Catastrophe'

In a statement, Dr. Axelrod said he was responding to a report issued last week by the National Academy of Sciences that said government's response to the AIDS epidemic was "inadequate" and that the country faced the possibility of a "medical catastrophe" unless the spread of AIDS is halted.

The academy said: "It is time to begin experimenting with public policy to encourage the use of sterile needles and syringes by removing legal and administrative barriers to their possession and use."

In response, Dr. Axelrod said, "I think it is worthwhile to consider, as the National Academy has suggested, limited trials that can be controlled to determine whether or not there is any effect on the transmission of the AIDS virus in the intravenous drug population."

Health officials said most efforts aimed at dissuading addicts from using contaminated needles have not succeeded. The state estimates there are nearly 200,000 intravenous drug addicts in the city.

'Proposal Has My Support'

In an interview, Mr. Koch said, "When you have such a situation we must explore in a reasonable, responsible way, methods to deal with it, and this proposal has my support."

Last year Mr. Koch described as "politically unfeasible" a proposal by Dr. David J. Sencer, then the City Health Commissioner, to distribute sterile needles to drug addicts because it would reguire legislation and was not supported by law enforcement officials.

In contrast, a demonstration project would not require legislation. Moreover, the director of the State Division of Substance Abuse Services, Julio A. Martinez, said a small demonstration project "is something that should be considered."

Thus far, there have been 8,000 AIDS cases diagnosed in the city; more than half have been fatal. AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is transmitted through an exchange of blood or semen. It destroys the body's immunity, leaving victims prey to a variety of fatal illnesses.

A possible demonstration project with drug addicts is just one of a number of new responses to the AIDS epidemic here.

Warning Bathhouse Patrons

For example, the major organization representing homosexuals that is concerned with combating AIDS in the city will soon start sending "intervention" teams into homosexual bathhouses, movie houses and bars in an effort to warn patrons about AIDS and to educate them in safe sexual practices.

"We are no longer waiting for them to come to us," said Lee Kochems, an education program official for the group, the Gay Men's Health Crisis. "We are going to them." Mr. Kochems said the teams would seek to have a videotape played in the theaters and bars that would warn patrons of the risks of contracting AIDS.

Teams from the Gay Men's Health Crisis have already set up information tables at several bathhouses and conducted a workshop on the risks of AIDS at a large homosexual bar. But the new program will be far more extensive and systematic, the group said. The program is supported by a $239,962 grant from the National Centers for Disease Control, which will also finance a study of the program's effects on sexual behavior.

A spokesman for the Health Crisis, Lori Behrman, said the group believed that the educational program would be more effective in containing the AIDS epidemic than the court-ordered closings last year of several bathhouses and a heterosexual sex club.

City officials said they had no plans for any further closings or any action that would interfere with homosexual gatherings in or around bathhouses, bars or movie theaters in the city.

Doron Gopstein, an assistant City Corporation Counsel who helped coordinate the city legal actions against the homosexual bathhouses last year, said, the city was limited in its actions by constitutional guarantees of privacy and by a "society that allows people to harm themselves."

The City and State Health Departments are providing a number of other programs.

State health officials said they have received $8.1 million from the United States Public Health Service to provide outpatient care and counseling to AIDS victims.

The funds will be used for conducting risk-reduction programs among the two largest risk groups - sexually active homosexual men and intravenous-drug users.

In addition, the city Health Department is opening five new centers at which people who suspect they are at risk can be tested anonymously to see if they have been exposed to the AIDS virus, and the Board of Education plans to distribute a videotape about AIDS in the public schools .

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