Subject: Disease Control Agency Backs Off AIDS Job-Ban List 
Date: Published: 12/5/91 (67 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology & Health:
    Disease Control
    Agency Backs Off
    AIDS Job-Ban List
    ----
    By Martha Brannigan
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    ATLANTA -- The Centers for Disease Control has backed off
 its plan to publish a controversial list of medical
 procedures that health-care workers infected by the AIDS
 virus should be barred from performing.
    Instead, the CDC has developed draft guidelines that
 essentially call for a case-by-case evaluation of what an
 HIV-positive health-care worker ought to be permitted to do,
 according to an individual familiar with the draft.
    The CDC's new approach would place major emphasis on the
 use of local panels to determine whether individual
 health-care workers are suitable to perform specific
 procedures, the individual said.
    The decision essentially marks a backing down by the
 federal agency in the wake of intense opposition from large
 segments of the medical industry.  At an emotionally charged
 hearing last month in Atlanta, a host of medical-specialty
 groups argued that there is little scientific data to support
 the development of such a list for so-called exposure-prone
 procedures.
    Yesterday, even the American Medical Association, which
 had been practically the sole supporter of the CDC's effort
 to generate a list of risky procedures, said the CDC's
 decision not to go that route was "consistent" with its own
 conclusions.
    A report about the draft guidelines was first reported
 yesterday in a New York Times article.  The CDC, while
 declining to give specifics of the draft guidelines, said it
 made the revised recommendations following discussions with
 professional organizations representing health-care workers
 and public-health experts.
    The CDC said that currently it is seeking comments on the
 proposed draft recommendations within the Public Health
 Service and would submit them to Louis W. Sullivan, secretary
 of the Department of Health and Human Services, before
 releasing them for public comment.
    Some professional health-care groups hailed the agency's
 revised position yesterday.  "We are very pleased they've gone
 in this direction," said Dr. Geraldine Morrow, president of
 the American Dental Association.  It remains to be seen what
 local and state groups will do to interpret these guidelines.
    The issue of health-care workers and acquired immune
 deficiency syndrome has spawned extensive debate since July
 1990, when the CDC reported the first instance of a health
 professional, a Florida dentist, infecting a patient.  Four
 other cases -- all involving the same dentist -- have since
 been reported.
    The AMA said its policymaking body at an interim meeting,
 beginning Sunday in Las Vegas, Nev., will review
 recommendations concerning human immunodeficiency virus
 testing of health-care workers and possible restrictions on
 such workers found to be HIV-infected.

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