
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991                   TAG: 9104140157
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AIDS-DOCTOR RESTRICTIONS UNLIKELY

Rather than endorse mandatory restrictions, federal officials appear likely to recommend that AIDS-infected health care proessionals voluntarily refrain from performing surgery and other invasive procedures or seek expert advice before continuing to do so.

Draft guidelines prepared by the Centers for Disease Control stress that doctors and dentists have a professional responsibility to determine whether they are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus and if so, to take steps to protect patients.

The issue has been hotly debated for much of the past year, ever since the first case was reported last summer of a dentist with AIDS who apparently infected three of his patients. It is the only known instance in which such transmission may have occurred, although there have been several dozen documented cases of transmission from infected patients to health workers.

- Los Angeles Times

by CNB