Knowingly Transmitting AIDS Is ‘Murder’--Gann

SACRAMENTO — Proposition 13 co-author Paul Gann, saying he caught AIDS from blood transfusions, said today that people who knowingly transmit the fatal disease should be tried for murder.

“I think they should be tried for murder because it’s a death sentence,” the 74-year-old government gadfly said at a press conference. “If you give it to someone knowingly you just kill someone.”

Gann also said he will use the remaining years of his life to promote universal testing as a way to fight the deadly disease.

“I am here to start what may become the last campaign of my life,” he said. “My doctor tells me that I have contracted AIDS, that I received it from contaminated blood transfusions five years ago. I don’t know how much time I have.

“I will be campaigning for more openness about AIDS. It seems as though those that have AIDS or might have AIDS want to keep it secret so they can do what they want and can keep spreading the disease.

“We should be leading the fight to protect our friends and loved ones from falling into our same fate. We should be the ones out there saying ‘Let’s test more; let’s tell more.’ I am for testing everyone and telling everything.”

Asked if he still supports quarantining AIDS victims, Gann said, “Whatever it takes.”

Gann, author or co-author of several ballot initiatives, including the tax-slashing Proposition 13 of 1978, said he didn’t see the need for an anti-AIDS initiative. But he said the Legislature should “live up to its responsibility and pass some” AIDS testing bills proposed by conservative Sen. John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights).