Antonovich on AIDS

With great weariness I read Antonovich’s letter condemning proposals to fight AIDS by providing bleach kits to addicts. It is another document in the dismal archive of self-righteous public officials making excuses for their lack of response to the AIDS crisis.

Antonovich continues the tradition of blaming AIDS victims for their disease, asserting, in effect, that it is preferable to let the epidemic continue rather than compromise moral principles. It is the same twisted mentality that prefers an astronomical teen-age pregnancy rate to placing birth control clinics in high schools.

Ultimately, the argument against providing drug users with bleach rests on the conviction that addicts’ lives are not worth saving. In Antonovich’s fantasy, addicts can kick their addictions whenever they wish; those who won’t, deserve their fate. Ideology and moralistic posturing are more important to the supervisor than saving the lives of drug addicts: Junkies probably wouldn’t vote for him anyway.

CURTISS CLAYTON

Los Angeles