Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210543
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
In the hearing, which continues Friday, the CDC is seeking advice and criticism from nearly 100 representatives of groups as diverse as the guerrilla protest organization ACT UP and the American Medical Association.
"The CDC goes into this with a completely open mind regarding what more, if anything, needs to be done to minimize the risk of AIDS to patients in doctors' and dentists' offices," said Dr. William Roper, director of the CDC.
Concern over patients' risk of getting AIDS infection at the doctor's office grew last summer with the disclosure of three cases among patients of an infected Florida dentist.
The AMA and other groups have sharply criticized the idea of requiring health-care workers to undergo AIDS tests.
Dr. Nancy Dickey, an AMA trustee, said in a statement prepared for the hearing that "mandatory HIV testing for health care workers would be no more successful . . . than mandatory testing for marriage license applicants."
"A physician who has a transmissible and fatal disease should not place his or her patients at risk," she said.
Roper said a patient's right to know whether his doctor or dentist poses a possible threat is "a fundamental question in medicine, but it's not a simple question and we really can't give . . . a simplistic answer."
CDC spokeswoman Anne Sims said the hearing was called "to listen . . . to get feedback from the dental and medical professions who are affected," before officials make a decision on a new AIDS policy.
But the research director of one AIDS watchdog group speculated that CDC officials already may have made up their minds.
"What's not clear here is whether, in fact, they already do have draft guidelines, and just have to sit through us all clamoring about them," said Dr. Ruth Finkelstein of the Washington-based AIDS Action Council.
But the CDC said no action will be taken for several weeks. In addition to the hearing, the CDC said it will take written comments on the matter for the next month, then review all responses.
In a draft report prepared for the hearing, CDC researchers estimated that between 13 and 128 Americans have been infected with the AIDS virus by their surgeons or dentists.
Only the three cases involving the Florida dentist, Dr. David Acer, who died last September, have been confirmed. Researchers said the estimate is based on the estimated number of AIDS-infected dentists and surgeons, the projected number of surgeries or other procedures they perform during which the virus can be transmitted and the theoretical risk of transmitting the virus each time.
Several participants criticized the CDC's methodology in its preparation of the statistical assessment of the AIDS risks to patients.
by CNB