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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY 15, 1985
with AIDS virus, Dr. Sencer says. "We have 945 cases of IV (in
travenous) drug abusers with active AIDS, and we don't know how
to approach it. It's horrible," he says ••..
More difficult than regulating brothels or bathhouses is invading
the nursery. Yet pediatric AIDS cases may prove� "global reser
voir of the virus," says Wade Parks of the University of Miami
Schoolof Medicine. "Mothers with antibody to the AIDS virus
shouldn't get pregnant," Dr. Parks says. "But anything we do is
going to be wrong in someone's eyes."
He gingerly pushes birth control, but addicts and Roman Catholic
Haitian mothers are rejecting it. Even after counseling, some
women continue to give birth. Many of the mothers have had one
baby with AIDS and would like to keep trying for a healthy baby.
Not all babies get the full-blown syndrome. Some have swollen
lymph glands and weakened immunity but "will probably survive to
reproductive age," Dr. Parks says •. Thus, the cycle could repeat
itself.
Even in the suburb of Manhasset, Dr. Kaplan has more than two
dozen cases of mother-child transmission.
"We have addicts'
children who �re antibody-negative and virus-positive. I don't
know what to do. These kids � in school. It's being hushed �,
because it's such� horrific thing."
The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Gay Task Force
and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Foundation see fear of
AIDS spawning a massive assault on the civil rights of homo
sexuals. "Now there's a public-health basis for homophobia and
discrimination," worries Tim Sweeney of Lambda, a New York-based
civil-rights group.
Lambda says New York case law is clear: AIDS is a disability, and
job discrimination on the basis of disability is illegal. And
� Inc., parent company of United Airlines,� recently ordered
.QY �
mediator to abandon its rule of grounding all flight atten
dants with AIDS. The company now says it will review each em
ployee on a case-by-case basis•••• In the face of rampant fears,
most health officials calmly insist AIDS cannot be transmitted by
a handshake or a sneeze. Still, a few like Dr. Kaplan privately
agonize. "I've got� salad chef and� pizza cook who are antibody
positive, and
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don't know what to do."
The self-appointed shepherds of modern Israel--in Britain, Canada, Austra
lia, New Zealand, the U.S. and elsewhere--are virtually mute before the on
slaught of this moral scourge. They no longer believe the words of Paul in
Romans 1:27--"Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman,
burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shame
ful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which� due"
(RAV) •
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau