Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1986. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - December 31, 1986
AIDS is not spread by casual, workplace contact, and as the Surgeon General has stated, "Compulsory blood testing of individuals is not necessary." Still, following the Departments of Defense and State, the Labor Department has announced it will test new members of the Job Corps for exposure to the AIDS virus. Should their example be followed by private employers and other institutions, the million or more Americans who now harbor the AIDS virus will suffer the added burden of wrongful discrimination.
The Defense Department claimed it needed to screen military recruits for AIDS because of the need to perform quick blood transfusions on the battlefield. Last month the State Department proposed to screen Foreign Service applicants and employees on the ground that AIDS victims couldn't get proper medical treatment in some foreign postings. The Labor Department's rationale is even more far-fetched. In order to protect the health of trainees at its residential Job Corps centers, the Department claims, mere education about avoiding AIDS is not enough; it must test applicants' blood for the virus.
That's probably illegal under the Federal Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. It's also ineffectual because the blood test will miss those exposed to the virus too recently to produce antibodies.
The Administration has been speaking with two voices on AIDS, the voices of Koop and Cooper. Surgeon General Everett Koop brings the best medical knowledge to bear in recommending against compulsory testing for AIDS. Charles Cooper, an Assistant Attorney General, showed only meanness and ignorance when he advised, in a gratuitous opinion last June, that the fear of contagion is a permissible ground on which to dismiss AIDS victims.
Fortunately, laws in most states prohibit employers from requiring a blood test as a condition of employment, since AIDS is regarded as a disability whose sufferers are protected from discrimination. Most employers now accept that it is both wrong and unnecessary to dismiss a person with AIDS. State law and private employers offer an example the Administration would do better to follow, and consistently.
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