The AIDS Agenda

The Los Angeles County AIDS Commission has again demonstrated leadership by recommending that the Board of Supervisors close the county’s 16 bathhouses and take firm stands on two important pieces of AIDS legislation in Sacramento.

Controversy has raged within and without the homosexual community regarding bathhouse operations. Leaders of at least one major gay and lesbian group have themselves been so divided that they have been unable to make a recommendation. The county commission established a task force to examine the problem, and has now unanimously endorsed its findings: In sum, that the public-health risks through the spread of AIDS outweighed the possible usefulness of the bathhouses as sources of AIDS education for the gay and bisexual men who are the patrons. We think that the commission did the correct thing.

If the supervisors agree and implement the ban, there doubtless will be a legal challenge, as there was in San Francisco. The courts overturned the ban in San Francisco but agreed to public-health restrictions. Ultimately the bathhouses there lost patronage and closed.

Commission members sent two other important recommendations to the supervisors. They urged support of AB 87, milestone legislation that would create a California AIDS commission and implement other major recommendations of U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. And they urged opposition to SB 1432, introduced by Sen. John Doolittle (R-Rocklin), which would allow writers of life and health insurance to require AIDS tests, now prohibited. The commission correctly concluded that the bill would do more harm than good.

The effect of the commission is increasingly apparent. The county Department of Health Services, in response to commission action supported by the Board of Supervisors, has now devised an accounting and budget-reporting procedure that will accelerate public spending on the AIDS program after months of delays. Furthermore, the commission already is playing a role in getting more adequate funding for the next county budget.

One neglected area requiring more money is in services for intravenous drug users, among whom the most rapid spread of AIDS is taking place. In the Los Angeles area there are an estimated 80,000 drug users, but only about 4% of them are thought to be infected with the human immuno-deficiency virus that causes AIDS. This contrasts with about 15% in San Francisco and more than 50% in New York. The meaning of those statistics is clear: Without urgent action to educate drug users about AIDS, a more rapid spread of the disease is inevitable.