Subject: Senate Amendment on PWA Health Care Workers
Date: Published: 7/19/91 (31 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    House Panel, Under Veto Threat, Halts
    Action on Bill for War Costs, Farm Aid
    ----
    By Jackie Calmes and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
    Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

    WASHINGTON -- A House committee, in the face of a veto
 threat by the Bush administration, suspended action on a
 spending bill covering leftover costs of Operation Desert
 Storm and disaster aid for farmers.
    In addition, the Senate approved an amendment that would
 impose prison terms on health-care workers who are infected
 with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and don't inform
 their patients of the condition.  Another amendment would
 restrict and monitor the kinds of jobs that medical
 professionals who have AIDS can hold.  The bill now must be
 reconciled with a House-passed version of the bill that
 doesn't contain similar AIDS provisions.
    "I am overwhelmed and terribly upset at what is obviously
 politics over public health," said Mervyn Silverman, a
 physician and president of the American Foundation for AIDS
 Research.

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