Mandatory Testing

Barry Bonds says he doesn't use steroids. Never has. Never will. We should take him at his word. Because there is no proof to the contrary, Bonds should receive all the credit he deserves for his terrific career and his amazing home run performance in 2001. But the lingering questions about his dramatically bulked-up physique should prompt the San Francisco Giants' All-Star and every other clean-living baseball player to demand the same thing. Mandatory testing. The steroid controversy that erupted a few weeks ago seems to be blowing over, but it shouldn't.

Barry Bonds says he doesn't use steroids. Never has. Never will. We should take him at his word. Because there is no proof to the contrary, Bonds should receive all the credit he deserves for his terrific career and his amazing home run performance in 2001. But the lingering questions about his dramatically bulked-up physique should prompt the San Francisco Giants' All-Star and every other clean-living baseball player to demand the same thing. Mandatory testing. The steroid controversy that erupted a few weeks ago seems to be blowing over, but it shouldn't.

Boston. -- It's almost nine months now, nearly a full gestation period. Time to come to term, or at least to terms, with a new point of view.In November, there was something akin to good news in the often gloomy world of AIDS research. A federal study found that HIV- infected women who took the drug AZT during their pregnancy could reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their babies by as much as two-thirds.This not only changed the odds of having a healthy baby, it added weight to the importance of HIV testing.

FRESH from Yale Law School in 1978, Lori Andrews took the bar exam the same day that Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born.Since then, Ms. Andrews' legal career has been intertwined with the stormy development of reproductive and genetic technologies.Her expertise, tempered by compassion and wit, has made her a respected voice of reason in clamorous disputes -- about genetic testing, surrogate arrangements, the disposition of frozen embryos, cloning -- that were never forecast by the pioneering scientists who made them possible.

Stressing that there has been only one known case of HIV transmission by a health-care worker, the Governor's Task Force on HIV Prevention and Treatment has voted to stand firm on its recommendation against mandatory testing of doctors and dentists.The Maryland panel, which met last night, referred to a case in Florida involving Dr. David Acer, a dentist who before his death from AIDS infected five of his patients. Four are still alive, but Kimberly Bergalis, 23, died Sunday.Dr. Don-Neil Brotman, a Baltimore dentist, told the panel that Gov. William Donald Schaefer had pushed for mandatory testing because he thought the figures involving HIV transmission from health-care workers to patients were much higher.

Stressing that there has been only one known case of HIV transmission by a health-care worker, the Governor's Task Force on HIV Prevention and Treatment has voted to stand firm on its recommendation against mandatory testing of doctors and dentists.The Maryland panel, which met last night, referred to a case in Florida involving Dr. David Acer, a dentist who before his death from AIDS infected five of his patients. Four are still alive, but Kimberly Bergalis, 23, died Sunday.Dr. Don-Neil Brotman, a Baltimore dentist, told the panel that Gov. William Donald Schaefer had pushed for mandatory testing because he thought the figures involving HIV transmission from health-care workers to patients were much higher.

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer wants HIV infection treated like any other communicable disease, enabling health workers to trace a patient's sex partners and others who may have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS.While the governor's bill would designate at least five confidential testing centers, those who test positive at other sites would be treated as if they had gonorrhea, hepatitis, meningitis, typhoid, syphilis or tuberculosis.This means health workers would follow "contact tracing" procedures -- notifying those who had sex, shared needles or otherwise exchanged body fluids with an HIV-infected patient.

The state medical society has gone on the offensive against Gov. William Donald Schaefer's tentative call for mandatory testing of health-care providers and patients.The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland -- the state medical society -- issued a statement yesterday reaffirming its .. long-time position against testing, calling it scientifically unnecessary and impractical."Any attempt to pass legislation mandating HIV testing for health-care workers and patients would not be based on scientific data surrounding the AIDS epidemic but would rather be a reaction to unfounded public fear," Dr. Fred A. Gill, chairman of the society's AIDS committee, said in a statement.

Unhappy with the direction his special AIDS task force is taking, Gov. William Donald Schaefer said today that he "absolutely" will push for passage of a bill that would require mandatory testing of state health-care workers for the deadly virus.The Governor's Task Force on HIV Prevention and Treatment, stressing that there has been only one known case of HIV transmission by a health-care worker, voted last night to stand firm on its recommendation against mandatory testing of doctors and dentists.

It is always refreshing when someone in public life finds the courage and good sense to cut through all of the nonsense.Today's hero is Dr. Richard T. Johnson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the chairman of the Governor's Council on HIV Prevention and Treatment.Tuesday, Johnson's group dared to tell our do-it-now, shoot-from-the hip governor that the mandatory testing of health officials for AIDS is a waste of time and money."It is a fallacy," said Johnson. "There is no scientific basis for mandatory testing and it's very expensive.

Lynne Tucker describes herself as a parent on a mission.Worried that the Anne Arundel County school system is shortchanging gifted and talented pupils, Tucker and another parent have started an advocacy group to ensure that the needs of gifted children are met.Tucker has concerns about the school system's approach to dealing with gifted children in elementary and middle schools -- and their parents -- and hopes that the Gifted and Talented Association can...

PEDIATRICIANS share a common reaction to the Food and Drug Administration's decision to require pharmaceutical companies to test the effects of new drugs on children: It's about time.Only 20 percent of the prescription drugs on the market today have been voluntarily tested for safety and effectiveness on children. That means pediatricians too frequently are forced to guess when making critical decisions about the drugs and dosages they prescribe for their youngest patients.And unfortunately, even a doctor's educated guesses can be deadly.

After surviving its own treadmill of political debate and performance problems for nearly three years, a stricter vehicle emissions test is about to become mandatory in Maryland.Drivers, here's fair warning: Beginning Wednesday, the first 25,000 notices will start showing up in the mail summoning cars and light trucks to one of 19 state-owned centers for required dynamometer testing.Unlike the traditional tailpipe test, which has been standard in Maryland since 1984, cars will be driven on a treadmill by an attendant.

I AM WRITING in response to your April 29 editorial, "Glendening's first veto." Everyone I know, liberal or conservative, wants clean air.The problem with this or any other emission test is that many factors are involved in whether or not a car passes the test. In other words, the best any test can do without causing great inconvenience to everyone is to catch the gross polluters.I take issue with several points made. The cars are subjected to much more than just pressing on the accelerator by an attendant.

WASHINGTON -- House and Senate negotiators tentatively agreed yesterday on a measure that would eventually require states to begin mandatory testing of newborns for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, if health officials cannot reduce the number of infected infants by other means, people involved in the talks said last night.States that did not comply would risk losing federal money provided under the Ryan White act, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money each year for the treatment of people with AIDS.

Boston. -- It's almost nine months now, nearly a full gestation period. Time to come to term, or at least to terms, with a new point of view.In November, there was something akin to good news in the often gloomy world of AIDS research. A federal study found that HIV- infected women who took the drug AZT during their pregnancy could reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their babies by as much as two-thirds.This not only changed the odds of having a healthy baby, it added weight to the importance of HIV testing.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer seems to be on a one-man crusade to require mandatory testing of all state health-care workers for the deadly AIDS virus. Virtually every expert agrees this would be foolish and expensive. Yet the governor persists in pushing his plan and castigating those who disagree with him. In this case, he would do well to listen to what his own medical advisers are saying.Not one but two AIDS task forces have now reported to the governor that mandatory testing of health-care workers doesn't make scientific sense.

WASHINGTON -- House and Senate negotiators tentatively agreed yesterday on a measure that would eventually require states to begin mandatory testing of newborns for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, if health officials cannot reduce the number of infected infants by other means, people involved in the talks said last night.States that did not comply would risk losing federal money provided under the Ryan White act, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money each year for the treatment of people with AIDS.

A bill that would make a blood-alcohol test mandatory after a vehicular accident results in "life-threatening injury" was approved yesterday by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.SB-315 is designed to close a loophole in current law, which requires a test in fatal crashes only if the death occurs immediately.With shock trauma systems and other modern medical techniques, fatally injured victims often live for days, allowing suspected drunken drivers to escape the mandatory test."We're encouraged," said Susan Edkins, the mother of a 12-year-old girl killed last Oct. 29 in a crash involving an alleged drunken driver.

Forty percent of the heavy diesel trucks tested so far in Maryland's new voluntary emissions-control program flunked, spewing smoke dirtier than an industry-recommended standard.But state Department of the Environment officials greeted the news cheerfully yesterday.That failure rate is very close to what they expected when the program for heavy-duty rigs began seven weeks ago, officials said at a press conference in West Friendship, held at a truck weigh station on Interstate 70.The 18-month, penalty-free "pilot program," they said, is supposed to encourage the owners of soot-belching vehicles to tune up their engines and clean up the air. The $160,000 effort is also intended to help the state decide in 1995 whether a mandatory testing program for heavy-duty trucks, defined as those weighing more than 8,500 pounds, is needed.