Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Planned Free Enterprise "A little noticed but profound change in the relationship between government and business is taking shape," writes Irwin M. Stelzer in his article...
...If we want to prevent sickness and death, rather than conducting an experiment to test Fumento's hypothesis, then rational fear, not wishful thinking, is clearly indicated...
...At what point will he start to worry...
...government removed the regulatory obstacles from its path...
...ted to CDC...
...The confu- I am heartened by Congressman Dan- from non-AIDS diseases, due to diversion documented by Mr...
...ocean shipments excessively costly and to channel taxpayers' funds into the pockets of a few union members...
...tinue to be, the disease of homosexuals, Unfortunately, only a few states have intravenous drug abusers, and inner-aggressively sought to determine the city blacks and Hispanics...
...During and after the Civil War, federal funding made the American railroad system possible, since no private companies had the enormous financial clout necessary...
...Fumento notes that the rate of new infections among homosexuals in major cities is now between zero and four percent...
...If the lect reliable data on the incidence of Washington, D.C...
...But let's not rule out the benefits that a little government support can offer in some important areas...
...Why such lenge the accuracy of the data submit- declines are cause for worry escapes me...
...I was writing on mense...
...According to CDC, New York City hospitals handled a total of 134 pediatric AIDS cases in 1988...
...The single most impor- merit one can prevent in writing letters tant step that medical and public health to the editor if the letter writer merely authorities can take in this regard is to reads the article...
...On the other hand, the occasional cooperation between government and business during the last two centuries has helped lead to some great American economic successes...
...And I can't agree that subsidies and "flexible antitrust laws," i.e., replacement of competition by cartels, will enhance American competitiveness...
...For instance: • In our first decades, Congress developed a system of national protective tariffs (not something I favor today...
...Productivity in the mines in the "copper belt" of central Africa is down substantially...
...As the country expanded geographically, state and federal funds were needed for the construction of our first highways and canals, allowing for further economic expansion...
...Overall, such studies have a test is warranted in the physician's exerOther surveys in Baltimore, Staten shown that even over a period of years cise of his medical judgment, and that states impose Island, and my own Orange County, no restrictions or obstacles on this only about 20 percent of seropositive California, where 3.5 percent of all ability...
...While Fumento's treatment of the political gamesmanship that accompanies attempts to estimate the epidemic's scale is sobering, he is wrong to conclude that "estimates of the size of the AIDS epidemic are proving to be grossly exaggerated...
...Unfortunately for Mr...
...William E. Dannemeyer rible toll in research on other diseases, Without a systematic effort to col- Member of Congress not to mention the toll in terror...
...Is the epidemic really shrinking...
...Gold, for example, cites with apparent approval "cash subsidies for maritime interests...
...He finds that very encouraging, but unaccountably fails to comment on the fact that the total infection rate in that population may be higher than 50 percent...
...must be jettisoned and replaced with In fact, I believe those figures to be too the traditional approach to fighting high, considering that most of the data contagious disease...
...Stelzer is right about one thing: economic decisions in this country should remain the prerogative of American entrepreneurs and businessmen...
...A brief look at our history shows that, early on, government was involved in promoting trade and mobilizing capital and labor for public enterprises...
...While it is impossible to know exactly how many HIV positive individuals escape CDC's notice, some recent studies indicate that the underreporting is extensive...
...prominent physician there to warn that I could play the anomalous study game 2. physicians be permitted to test patients "the prevalence of HIV infection among for the presence of HIV infection in the by pointing out that some spouse/parturban youth is higher than originally same manner as they currently test for other ner studies have shown zero percent insuspected...
...True, thanks to the likes of FDR and LBJ, American businesses today are burdened by federal regulations that cause waste and inefficiency...
...In the long run, competition between suppliers results in lower costs and keener rivalry to innovate...
...This problem will and logic...
...48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1989...
...In cruits not belonging to the aforemen7,884 deaths in New York City between April, the MSSNY grew so frustrated tioned high-risk groups...
...infections and conditions...
...In one study, 82 percent of spouses of infected persons converted their blood tests in less than two years of continued, unprotected marital relations...
...Thcson, Arizona Michael Fumento's article contains some thoughtful insights into the motivations of those who have transformed the epidemic of HIV infection into a contentious political issue...
...Fumento ought not restrict his vision to New York and San Francisco...
...San Francisco's seropositivity studies Measures unique to HIV infection— all indicate that about 50 percent of such as the widespread use of anony- that city's homosexuals are infected," mous testing and the onerous require- and that a sentence before that I indiment that doctors obtain the patient's cated that the same had been thought written consent before being tested— to be true of New York homosexuals...
...Orient's conclusion is basically is has advanced more rapidly among the markable that such a commonsense ap- the alarmists' final refuge of "to hell so-called underclass than is generally proach has not already been adopted in with the facts, this situation is so potenbelieved...
...health measures to contain the HIV tary, November 1987...
...David Ax- And for those 17 to 19 it was only 0.3 such...
...and authorized cash subsidies for maritime interests...
...In the final analysis, Mr...
...But unfortunately, the endpoint may be the death of all susceptible individuals in the population at risk...
...In men between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine, the rate was 3.8 per 1,000...
...A survey of HIV seroprevalence among epidemic as are used to control the spread For her sample spouse study, Dr...
...laid the foundation for a federal patent system...
...are from sexually transmitted disease That the HIV epidemic has been clinics and considering that AIDS cases handled as a political rather than a in those populations are peaking out, public health issue is perhaps best il- but I did provide them...
...The results are frightening...
...Fumento's assessment is correct...
...MSSNY most recent test period is a significant New York since 1982 is 134 percent also approved two resolutions that call drop from the 1.5 percent rate during higher than officially reported...
...In the same study, 17 percent of those who used condoms converted, and none of those who abstained...
...Outside the high-risk groups, the disease spreads much more slowly...
...For example, it is clearly ridiculous to assume that an epidemic can remain indefinitely in its exponential growth phase...
...But the most important difference may be the time elapsed since the appearance of the disease...
...Gold are few...
...Orient unactreat HIV infection no differently than countably failed to notice that I wrote other sexually transmitted diseases...
...We know that sexually transmitted diseases can reach very high levels in the general population, even in the U.S...
...Clearly, there are areas in which government activity is necessary, such as the establishment of a patent system to protect property rights...
...Other studies have shown lower rates of conversion...
...In the United States it edge is so limited so late into the is, and with few exceptions will con-epidemic...
...It the subject in 1987...
...overreaction to AIDS is exacting a terschools, and the drug epidemic...
...Fear is no substitute for facts among researchers in these areas...
...The Citizens' Committee survey supports the findings of other researchers...
...The time for containing an epidemic is in its early stages...
...Stephen V Gold Oakton, Virginia Irwin M Stelzer replies...
...These have only served to make intra-U.S...
...number of infected and their demo- It's amazing how much embarrassgraphic profile...
...So AIDS transmission is "extremely inefficient...
...The Citizens' Committee survey, however, found that less than half of those hospitals reported more than six times as many cases, a total of 828 children who received treatment for CDC-defined AIDS or clinically apparent HIV infection...
...The overall rate of 1.2 in the true number of HIV-related deaths in ing for Axelrod's dismissal...
...They face some stiff competition in the global marketplace, from businesses that receive support from governments willing to use direct subsidies, trade barriers, tax loopholes, and flexible antitrust laws...
...But equally clearly, it is important to avoid inefficient expansion of those areas...
...Jane M Orient, M.D...
...The railroad, in turn, gave this continent a common economic market, long before the Europeans attempted one...
...Unshrinking AIDS Michael Fumento got a few things right in his article "The Incredible Shrinking AIDS Epidemic" (TAS, May 1989...
...His time would be more wisely spent training his focus on our nation's federal tax code, an obvious case of de facto industrial policy if ever there was one...
...Commen1. states should apply the same public high as those reported in state test sites...
...The explanation for this worst...
...CORRESPONDENCE Planned Free Enterprise "A little noticed but profound change in the relationship between government and business is taking shape," writes Irwin M. Stelzer in his article "Corporatism Ousts Reaganomics" (TAS, May 1989...
...Today's free enterprise system would work better if the U.S...
...But this may or may not improve the competitiveness of American firms abroad...
...The problem with all projections of this epidemic is that they are based on assumptions and sadly insufficient data...
...Rand L. Stoneburner reviewed the (continued on page 48) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1989 9 comes as no surprise to those of us who never get the attention it deserves until have decried the political immunity ac- we stop pretending that "AIDS doesn't corded this killer virus that our knowl- discriminate...
...Between October 1987 and March 1988, the rate of seropositivity in civilian applicants for military service was 0.12 percent or 1.2 per 1,000, not "0.02 percent or less, or 1 in 5,000," as Fumento states...
...Some argue that Africa is different...
...Eventually, it has to level off...
...First, Dr...
...Human papilloma virus (the cause of genital warts and of cancer of the cervix) and chlamydia (a cause of pelvic inflammatory disease leading to infertility) already afflict 30 percent or more of sexually active women in some areas...
...In the southwest provincial capital of Masaka, Uganda, 30 percent of the adult population tests positive...
...My disagreements with Mr...
...But to make this argument one will ultimately dwarf other seemingly failure of public policy lies in the deci- has to ignore the entire last section of intractable social problems such as un- sion to regard HIV infection as a polit- my article, which demonstrates how employment, the disintegration of the ical rather than a medical problem...
...alarmists are wrong, as a steady stream HIV infection, our researchers will of new evidence continues to substantinever be able to ascertain the size and Michael Fumento replies: ate, the amount of sickness and death location of the epidemic...
...One study in Chicago, for Resolved, That the American Medical I have dealt with the African Association take the position that: situa- ssoc example, found pools of HIV infection tion at length elsewhere...
...Blood donor seropositivity innovative research techniques to chal- ment for HIV infection: rates have likewise dropped...
...expatriates are refusing to work there because of the widespread disease in the mining camps...
...See "AIDS: in certain neighborhoods three times asAre Heterosexuals at Risk...
...Would Fumento like to bet his life on which percentage is correct...
...But there is no evidence that the epidemic is "shrinking," and the statistics are not cause for complacency...
...support the contention that the epidem- The average citizen might find it re- Dr...
...Second, the lustrated by the open warfare between 0.02 percent seropositivity figure was CORRESPONDENCE New York Governor Mario Cuomo and not for all civilian applicants to the ser(continued from page 9) the Medical Society of the State of New vice but was, as I stated, "the prevaYork (MSSNY), which represents more lence of HIV infection in military rethan 27,000 physicians in the state...
...Surely, that is the more enduring path to the development of products that can compete in the world's marketplace...
...In Africa, the situation with heterosexual spread is truly alarming...
...1978 and 1986 listed as "narcotics- with the special treatment accorded Recent seropositivity for all military related" and found that many were HIV infection by Cuomo and his applicants 25 to 29 was 3.8 per 1,000...
...adolescent patients at Children's Hos- of other communicable or sexually trans- Orient chose the most alarming and, and diseases...
...prompted a not coincidentally, one of the smallest...
...persons manage to infect their spouses, prisoners have tested positive for HIV, even if condoms are not used...
...A more accurate statement, I believe, is that for political reasons federal, state, and local health officials have denied themselves the information necessary to answer many of the questions raised by Fumento...
...AIDS-related, although not reported as health commissioner, Dr...
...The change, it seems, is a "trend" away from market capitalism and toward corporatism...
...Unfortunately, it now appears that CDC has missed significant pockets of infection in the inner cities, especially among minority women, their newborn children, and the drug-free partners of intravenous drug users...
...Fumento testi- nemeyer's discovery of the plight of sion of funds and attention, will be imfies to the overall lack of knowledge minorities with AIDS...
...anle missib pital in Washington, D.C...
...Stelzer even goes as far as to say that our government's entry in the race for high definition television, superconductivity, and so on, is nothing more than the inception of a planned economy...
...i.e., when such fection rates...
...But if the CDC's totals are too high one year, the cases they predict may yet occur, just a little later...
...on the American Medical Association each of the first three test periods beginResearchers in other cities have used to endorse the principle of equal treat- ning in 1985...
...For example, the Citizens' Committee for Children obtained the CDC's estimate of the pediatric AIDS caseload in New York City for 1988 and contrasted it with the results of its own survey of 20 of the 48 pediatric units in New York City...
...In fact, he concluded that the elrod, that it approved a resolution call- per 1,000...
...The relentless march of HIV the state with the largest HIV caseload tially serious we must assume the infection through these neighborhoods in the nation...
...Stelzer's analysis, this "trend" has actually enjoyed a long and often constructive history in our country...
...I hope Mr...
Vol. 22 • July 1989 • No. 7
