Education Not Isolation

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In his commentary piece advocating the "isolation" of AIDS carriers, Jeff Wise writes that "no society is eager to adopt measures which chafe against its most basic conceptions of defency." Yet Mr. Wise's comments belie this sentiment. He is eager to ignore the faces of AIDS in his zealousness to ship AIDS carries to concentration camps--oops, I mean "special treatment centers."

I am not surprised by this, for human history has shown that far from recoiling from abrogating standards of decency, the majority has eagerly leapt at any chance to use disease, was or natural calamity to turn its fury on the unpopular minority. Jews in Europe were killed during the plague. Japanese-Americans were sent off to internment camps in World War II, while the politically powerful Italian- and German-American remained free.

Cigarette smokers and handgun owners pose a far greater public health hazard than do AIDS carriers. Yet there are no suggestions to send them off to the gas chambers--oops, I mean "hospitals and special treatment centers."

Mr. Wise writes that "what people seem to have forgotten, though, is that AIDS victims are going to die, period." What Mr. Wise seems to have forgotten, or perhaps he never knew, is that not all who test positive for the HLTV-III virus will develop AIDS. Does he suggest that millions of Americans be in terned for 50 or 60 years? Perhaps all those people can be sent to Madagascar or Martha's Vineyard.

Education on safer sex practices is another option--one which our government will not fund for fear of a public outcry about "pornography." Internment camps seeem to be more acceptable than talk about wearing a condom while having anal intercourse.

Funny how those so concerned about "public health" sound a lot like those who were concerned about "racial purity"--funny, but not so funny. Storm troopers dressed in medical smocks are no less terrifying and crematoria built in the name of ending an epidemic smell just as bad.

The Crimson has done us all a disservice by printing Mr. Wise's ramblings. The Crimson has chosen to print, on more than one occasion, badly researched articles that increase AIDS hysteria, rather than inform the public. There is no excuse for this anyone. Jake Stevens '86