Subject: Reagan Expected to Avoid Sex Education Issue in Speech
Date: Published: 5/29/87 84 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Reagan Expected to Back AIDS Testing,
   But Avoid Sex Education Issue in Speech
    ---
   By Ellen Hume
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   WASHINGTON -- President Reagan, preparing for his first
major speech about acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is
expected to recommend AIDS testing for many Americans but
hold off on education programs that his own public health
officials say are needed more urgently.
   President Reagan's policy choices, which were debated at a
Domestic Policy Council meeting with the president yesterday,
indicate that he is following his conservative instincts.  Mr. 
Reagan is expected to side with those favoring testing and
moral education, rather than follow the advice of Surgeon
General Everett Koop and others who believe a sexually
explicit education campaign is overdue as the virus spreads
from its original concentration among male homosexuals and
intravenous-drug users to the larger population.
   Mr. Reagan is expected to call for a broad testing program
 -- including tests for prisoners, immigrants, and people
applying for marriage licenses -- in his speech here Sunday
to actress Elizabeth Taylor's fund-raising dinner for the
American Foundation for AIDS Research.
   The president will try to defuse "the fear factor" about
the disease and urge "compassion" toward those who have it,
officials said, predicting that he won't outline any specific
national education program or announce the members of his new
presidential commission on AIDS. 
   White House officials said President Reagan is choosing
testing as his top priority because the federal government
must expand its statistical base on the spread of the
disease.  They also said serious doubts have arisen about the
effectiveness of the "safe sex" practices that would be
outlined in a national education campaign.  Concern has grown
in recent days about the ease of transmission since a
hospital worker was found to have contracted AIDS from
handling contaminated blood with her chapped hands.
   "The hardest-line guy in the room was the president" on
the testing issue, said a senior White House official who
attended yesterday's meeting.
   But many public health officials charge that the president
is doing only what he feels comfortable with, rather than
taking action that would be more effective.
   "Quite often, what they (politicians) do is the most
visible, but not the most effective thing," said Dr. Mervyn
Silverman, an AIDS expert who is president of the AIDS
foundation that Mr. Reagan will address Sunday.  Dr. 
Silverman, formerly director of San Francisco's health
department, opposes mandatory tests and contends they drive
AIDS carriers underground.  He said, however, that a "safe
sex" education program was found to drastically slow the
spread of AIDS among male homosexuals in San Francisco.
   The Centers for Disease Control, the federal agency
spearheading the fight against the AIDS epidemic, agrees that
pre-marital testing is ineffective.
The 76-year-old president, however, remains
"uncomfortable" with the AIDS issue and doesn't like to say
what is now known at the White House as the "C-word,"
standing for condom, according to his closest associates.  And
no one in the White House is recommending that a homosexual
be included on the president's commission on AIDS.  "Some
would be uncomfortable" working with a homosexual person,
explained a senior White House official.
   But White House officials say the president may eventually
approve a national educational program, and the Centers for
Disease Control is working to develop one.  "We don't have the
option of finding sex education distasteful," said Dr. June
Osborn, a virologist and pediatrician who is dean of the
University of Michigan's school of public health.  "It's a
little bit like the day after Pearl Harbor.  The world has
changed forever.  It's a life and death matter for our
adolescents and young children."

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]