- This week, a study reported
in the New England Journal of Medicine
contained new evidence that AIDS poses little or no risk
to those who come in casual or non-sexual contact
with AIDS patients.
That study may help reduce public fear about AIDS,
something that is sometimes referred to
as the second AIDS epidemic.
In Wisconsin there have been 62 reported cases of AIDS,
41 of those patients have died.
Still, as Carol Larson reports,
Wisconsin has not suffered the worst of the AIDS epidemic
or the epidemic of fear.
- I think it's a sickness just like everything else.
People don't ...
...put people down for having cancer,
it's just another illness.
- Carol: Would you mind if you knew somebody
in your workplace had AIDS?
- No.
It doesn't make me any difference,
long as they don't come tryna deal with me
in any kinda way, you know?
'Cause I don't believe it-- it's not catchable.
- I would be more worried about
what the other people,
what'd be the impact on the other people
and trying to keep hysteria down.
And a few things like that.
I personally would not be concerned.
- In general I've been finding it that
people have been very supportive.
I haven't had too many people
turn away from me or point at me or anything like that,
so it's been going pretty good.
- Carol: Larry Baumann has AIDS.
Last October, he nearly died of pneumocystic pneumonia,
one of the opportunistic infections
that take advantage of an AIDS patient's
damaged immune system.
Now on a strict, self-imposed health regimen,
Larry is active, social, and trying to be as productive
as possible.
- You gotta wanna fight.
You wanna, you have to wanna go on living.
You have to want to ...
Have a good life and enjoy it and,
for me, the fear is a lot greater than what
reality is really turning out to be.
For me, the fear of AIDS,
I think when I thought about it way back when,
was a lot more fearful than what it is.
It's like telling my parents I was gay.
I mean, I had all sorts of ideas
and all sorts of different stories inside my head
that was gonna take place,
and when it actually happened,
it was just like, none of those were true.
It wasn't anything like what I imagined it to be,
and I think people's imaginations really
go wild with them and ...
- Carol: Wisconsin does not seem to have
gone wild about AIDS.
In random street interviews in Madison,
passers by voiced little panic about its presence.
What if you found out that
someone in your office had AIDS?
How would you react?
Would you be concerned?
- Wouldn't concern me at all.
- Carol: No? - No.
- Carol: You wouldn't be thinking about it
or what you did or change your behaviors?
- No, not from what I know about it.
- People do seem to know an awful lot about AIDS,
using phrases like "blood to blood transmission"
and "the exchange of bodily fluids,"
as if they were medical students studying for an exam.
This studied interest may not make Wisconsin unusual,
but what does make this state unusual
is that as early as last year,
the Wisconsin State Legislature passed a law
protecting the confidentiality
of those who test for the AIDS virus.
Reassuring high risk groups,
still mainly the gay community,
a protection from public fears and discrimination.
Author of the law, Madison state representative,
David Clarenbach.
- There is clearly a social leper syndrome
related to the AIDS hysteria.
The public is concerned out of proportion
for the public health and safety.
Not that we should be unconcerned
about the epidemic of AIDS.
We should because it is clearly the number one
public health danger in America today.
But we have to be equally concerned about
the rights of individuals,
and that is why Wisconsin and several other states
have chosen to provide these extraordinary protections
to the gay community in particular
against discrimination in employment,
and the potential abuses for the disclosure
and use of these antibody tests.
- And we are relying very heavily on this test,
in terms of the blood supply.
If the test is positive on blood, it's not used,
if it's negative, we are going on the presumption
the blood is safe.
- Carol: The Wisconsin state task force on AIDS
meets every several weeks to discuss AIDS issues,
making recommendations on what schools, prisons,
or employers should or should not be doing about AIDS.
Recommendations are released as they are agreed upon,
though a final report will not be completed until August.
- You know, even in the most minimal circumstances,
the assailants' results are gonna be made known,
and maybe we agree that's necessary.
But it is getting impact in the confidentiality.
There's somebody else who's gonna have a right to know now.
- Carol: The task force is weighted with medical experts,
and healthcare workers, and their task is a delicate one.
Balancing public safety with individual rights,
in circumstances ranging from injuries on the job,
sexual assault, to protecting those
undergoing kidney dialysis.
- At this point, there is no evidence
that AIDS, or HTLV-3 virus,
can be transmitted through casual contact.
- Carol: Dr. David Kindig
of the University of Wisconsin Madison
is chairman of the task force.
Like many members, Kindig finds little evidence
that would require public testing for AIDS.
- The general inclination of the committee
not to say mandatorily screen for HTLV-3 status
in the general population, for example,
or in all prisoners for example.
Those are things we have taken action on.
It's not really, it's the confidentiality
is not the primary reason for that,
the primary reason is because
we don't feel that there's any evidence
that warrants it.
At this point, no one can be tested for HTLV-3
in this state without a written, informed consent.
- Interviewer: Would you be concerned
if your child was at school with someone who had AIDS?
- With children I feel a little bit more concerned
about that because I think there's less control and,
or again, we get back to the story,
or the answer, you know,
how easy is it?
You know, how easy can it be spread?
(school bell rings)
- Carol: So far there have been no AIDS children
reported in Wisconsin schools.
Though schools are where people most often voice a concern.
The task force recommendations
are to allow children with AIDS or the AIDS virus
to attend school, to lead as normal a life as possible.
Though the confidentiality laws
do not require their parents to tell school officials
if a child has AIDS.
And that worries some people.
As a precaution, schools are warned
to treat any bodily fluids, like blood or urine,
as if the child does have AIDS,
and that such precautions will in turn
prevent all sorts of school related infections.
But it is still the special case that worries parents.
Say, if a child were a biter.
- We have said that there may be circumstances,
say in which a child couldn't control their bowel movements,
or where they have open sores.
And there's no evidence that it's transmitted in that way,
yet in our action, we said there is or not,
we don't know for sure,
and there is fear about these situations,
and then so in those situations,
parents and doctors and school officials
should sit down together,
and decide whether some kind of special placement
ought to be, school placement,
ought to be arranged for a child like that.
(door slams)
- Carol: Hospital care of AIDS patients
has in the past been the center of controversy.
Instances where nurses refused to treat AIDS patients.
And the patients felt dehumanized
by the severe precautions taken by the staff.
- I think in a hospital, everybody,
they may have signs on the doors,
and they may have certain precautions.
But I found that everybody
kind of took their own precautions,
whatever they felt like was necessary.
You know, it was kind of a strange setup.
When somebody would come in,
there wouldn't, there'd be always a mix up
on people that were there that were already
gowned and gloved, and then people coming in with
maybe gloves.
Or just a mask.
And I found that to be, especially for my family,
they felt awkward because they were sitting there
all gowned up,
and then my friends would come in like,
"How you doing?"
You know? And just sit there and talk.
And they felt a little uncomfortable,
because they were doing this,
and my friends were doing this,
and they thought maybe I was gonna look at it like,
you know, kind of in a negative way, I guess.
- Dr. Dennis: There's always that hypothetical concern
about the spread of this virus,
because even though the risk may be very low,
and the evidence indicates that the risk of spread
in the hospital is exceedingly low.
- Carol: Dr. Dennis MacKey
treats AIDS patients at the UW Madison hospitals,
and is a member of the AIDS task force.
- We're talking about a very serious disease,
and with greater potentials for spread,
and for instance there is a greater risk
of needle stick injuries in the hospital setting
than there would be out in the community.
So that we do take special precautions,
but we don't take, it's not considered necessary
to take the very draconian precautions that
were taken three, four years ago
before we understood how this disease was transmitted.
Most patients in the hospital who have AIDS,
who have HTLV-3 infection,
can be cared for in a fashion indiscernible
from other patients,
and the major precautions that we take
are to try to make every effort
not to sustain a needle stick injury,
or a puncture injury,
from a needle or other object that may have come in contact
with the patient's blood.
- Carol: The AIDS task force will review the subject
of hospital policies in March.
- I was in prison myself once,
so it really, it's another sickness.
Just like, you know, cancer or leukemia,
if I shy away from somebody who has cancer,
that's just as bad as someone shying away
from someone who has AIDS.
(door slams shut)
- Carol: It is in the prisons
that some members of the AIDS task force
thought that they should reverse their recommendation
for no mandatory testing.
Despite assurances from prison officials
that violent or assaultive inmates
are regularly segregated.
- We have been concerned about
the blood borne transmission from inmates
to guards or from inmates to other inmates,
or the sexual transmission.
Either of coercive or non-coercive from an inmate
to another inmate.
- Carol: State health officials
estimate as many as 30% of all prison inmates
may carry the AIDS virus, but in Wisconsin,
prisoners have the same rights to consent as anyone else.
That is, they must give written consent
to being tested for AIDS,
and if found positive,
that information can only be revealed
to the proper state health officials
and that person's healthcare provider.
- We're debating now and we haven't decided,
but it's possible that mandatory screening, say,
of inmates or of other individuals,
on the street, who assault someone, sexually or physically,
they might be required to be mandatorily tested.
That's something that we could approve.
- Carol: If you heard that someone in your office had AIDS,
would you be perhaps more careful
or do things differently?
- I guess I would like to say no,
I wouldn't do things differently,
but I guess maybe in the back of my mind
there would always be a little bit of doubt,
just because there is so much unknown about the disease.
- I had this person come in contact with me
and I could just tell she was very very frightened
of the whole situation when she was getting,
you know, coming near me,
kind of taking care of me,
watching me.
It was ...
It was a weird experience.
(machine whirring)
- Carol: Public doubts about safety
often center around working situations.
Especially jobs with a direct contact with the public,
like food and personal services.
It has been suggested that individuals with AIDS
or those who test positive to AIDS,
be removed from such positions.
Based on the medical evidence,
the task force recommended that such restrictions
were again, unwarranted.
And under Wisconsin law,
employers cannot take it upon themselves
to restrict employees suspected of having AIDS.
- Even if someone were to be tested positive
on an AIDS antibody test,
they could not be fired,
and in fact an employer cannot require
as a condition of employment
submission to an AIDS antibody test.
That is flatly prohibited in the state,
until it has been determined
that in those limited job categories
they are placing a population at risk,
and since that has not yet been established,
then no employer can discriminate against
someone in those areas.
- Carol: Do you think there should be some restrictions
on people who have AIDS? - Definitely, yes.
- Carol: What kind of things?
- Put 'em in one area of the country.
- The fact that Wisconsin has made discrimination
against AIDS patients and those who carry the virus
an illegal act, does not mean that it doesn't happen here.
One man from a northern Wisconsin city has reported
that after his condition became known,
he was shunned by various relatives,
found a death threat on his car,
and was rammed with a grocery cart
while doing his weekly shopping.
In other words, Wisconsin does not provide
an absolute haven of goodwill and sympathy,
even though time and further research
seems to have tempered public sentiment.
- I think Wisconsin has a tradition of
progressive social legislation.
And a tolerance towards individuals.
Now, that is not to suggest that we are free and clear.
The hysteria continues,
and there is an effort in the legislature now
and will certainly be during the elections this fall
and during the next legislative session,
efforts to repeal or modify these protections
for the gay community,
and so I think the citizens of this state should be
vigilant for these potential hysterias catching on.
- We've got a lotta homophobia floating around and,
I've been to a lot of other states
and it doesn't surprise me.
- It's almost like, you know, being a leper,
in olden times, you know, you go put them in
the dirtiest parts of the village and
keep 'em away from society,
and I guess I can't see something like that happening
in today's supposedly enlightened society.
- Carol: As to what Larry Baumann says
to the suggestion of restricting
or segregating AIDS patients,
the man who swims, bikes,
and runs five miles every other day replied,
"They'll have to catch me first."
- See, and I don't think I'm sick. (laughs)
I don't look at myself that way at all.
And if I'm gonna die, I'd rather be out there
living my life and if I go, I go.
But I don't wanna sit here and
get depressed and
sit and wait to die, I ...
I can't understand that,
and I can't understand having anybody else
not wanna fight and just,
get out and do what they wanna do.
- Carol Larson produced our report,
Frank Bull was the videographer and editor.