Subject: Issue of Medical Workers With AIDS Is Left to States
Date: Published: 6/17/92 (34 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Issue of Medical Workers
    With AIDS Is Left to States

    ATLANTA -- The Centers for Disease Control, after fighting
 with much of the medical establishment over whether
 health-care workers with the AIDS virus should be barred from
 performing certain medical procedures, has decided to place
 the decision in the hands of state health departments.
    For much of the past two years, the medical community has
 struggled over the extent to which health-care workers with
 the human immunodeficiency virus pose a threat to the public.
 At one point, the CDC had planned to publish an extensive
 list of so-called exposure-prone procedures that infected
 medical personnel should refrain from performing.
    Yesterday, however, the CDC said local boards would be
 better able to decide whether doctors, dentists and other
 medical professionals with AIDS or hepatitis B are a risk to
 patients.
    The CDC said it is drafting a letter to all state health
 departments, telling them they may judge on a case-by-case
 basis, but recommending that local health officials abide by
 AIDS guidelines issued by the CDC in July 1991.
    Those guidelines list some high-risk procedures that
 AIDS-infected workers should avoid, including heart surgeries
 and tooth extractions.

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