SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (SF) - THURSDAY July 7, 1988 Edition: FINAL Section: NEWS Page: A9 Word Count: 428
Maitland Zane, Chronicle Staff Writer

Characterizing the controversial measure as "LaRouche III," Dr. Lauren White, the CMA president, declared, "It's bad medicine and bad public health. It's also bad for human rights."

"It would undermine what we have achieved," said the public health director, Dr. David Werdegar, another speaker at a news conference at the American Civil Liberties Union office here.

Dubbing the measure "LaRouche III" was a reference to political extremist Lyndon LaRouche and the two previously unsuccessful California ballot initiatives he supported that called for mandatory reporting of people testing positive for AIDS. Voters defeated the measures in June and in 1986.

The new measure was listed yesterday on the November ballot as Proposition 102.

If it passes, Werdegar said, four testing centers in San Francisco, where 50,000 people have been tested anonymously for AIDS since 1975, would have to close because confidentiality rules would go down the drain.

"It would drive the AIDS epidemic underground," said Helen Miramontes, past president of the California Nurses Association.

"It's a mean-spirited attempt to exploit AIDS for political purposes," said Benjamin Schatz, attorney for the National Gay Rights Advocates.

The initiative, called the "Public Health Act of 1988" and which 570,000 Californians petitioned to get on the ballot, forbids anonymous AIDS testing and would make it a crime for a person who tested HIV-positive not to report the test results as well as his or her sexual partners.

Doctors would be required to report to local health authorities the name of anyone "believed" to be infected with the AIDS virus, and would face a $250 fine for failing to report.

Proponents are Representative William Dannemeyer, R-Orange County, tax crusader Paul Gann and state Senator John Doolittle, a Sacramento Republican. Several hundred conservative doctors have also backed the measure.

George Cumming, an attorney with the law firm of Brobeck, Phleger and Harrison, said the suit, filed in Superior Court, seeks a writ of mandate that would require Secretary of State March Fong Eu to take the measure off the ballot because two key rules were violated. A hearing is expected in about two weeks.

Informed that the lawsuit had been filed, Paul Mero, a Washington, D.C., aide to Dannemeyer, said, "This proves that AIDS is a politically protected disease."

"This is the first shot fired. It's going to be a good battle," he said.

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