Venereal Disease

Faced with high rates of teen-age pregnancy and venereal disease, Baltimore's Health Department has quietly begun dispensing birth control pills and condoms to students who say they need them at seven city schools.Health clinics at selected high and middle schools have counseled sexually active city students and prescribed contraceptives since 1985, as part of providing a broad range of medical care to youngsters who might not otherwise get it.But the clinics began dispensing contraceptives last month because students could not be counted on to pick them up elsewhere, putting them at risk for pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases including acquired immune deficiency syndrome, said Elias Dorsey, acting city health commissioner.

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police has demanded an apology from mayoral candidate A. Robert Kaufman, who recently issued a news release that said city police officers frequent prostitutes. Kaufman, founder of the City Wide Coalition, which pushes for city insurance reform, made the comments while proposing a red-light district in Baltimore for legalized prostitution. Kaufman, 68, said the move would help reduce the city's high rate of venereal disease. In the release sent to news media last month, Kaufman called prostitution a "victimless" crime.

President Clinton has thrown all the clout at his command behind his nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Joycelyn Elders. His most pressing reason has nothing to do with Dr. Elders -- a personal friend -- or her fitness for the job. Mr. Clinton simply cannot abandon another black nominee after the Lani Guinier fiasco.But unlike Ms. Guinier, whose radical political solutions to racial problems had to be ferreted out of recondite law reviews, Dr. Elders broadcasts her hair-raising ideas. She has declared: ''The surgeon general really does have a bully pulpit, you know, and I'll use it.''Moreover, Dr. Elders' record as head of the Department of Health in Arkansas is a resounding flop.

IN CASE YOU hadn't noticed, the talk around here got very sexy last week. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, in her intimate way, talked about everyone's most delicate subject. And then, offering his own embrace, so did Peter Beilenson. By the end of the week, some of us practically needed a cigarette. Townsend, the lieutenant governor, brought us the breathless news about Maryland's rate of teen pregnancy, which has dropped for the seventh straight year. And Dr. Beilenson, the Baltimore health commissioner, told us that the city no longer leads the nation in the rate of venereal disease.

An anti-pornography group in the county is going to school with its efforts this week.The group, the Women's Christian Temperence Union based in Havre de Grace, plans to distribute a leaflet warning teachers at four Havre de Grace area schools about pornography.The county Board of Education approved distribution of the packets in teachers' mail slots at the schools.The school board receives "hundreds upon hundreds" of requests from a wide range of organizations to distribute materials to school principals, said Al Seymour, public information officer for the county board of education.

Flag and petty officers reflect same standardsWith regard to your Nov. 26 editorial, ''The Admiral Walks the Plank,'' I find myself agreeing that Adm. Richard Macke's words were entirely inappropriate and utterly boorish.What I object to is your claim that his comments ''might have been understandable from a petty officer.'' Why?How do you come to the conclusion that a petty officer might be expected to make such a statement, but not a flag officer?The petty officer ranks are the backbone of navies the world over.

From The Sun Aug. 14-20, 1844Aug. 16: Yesterday morning a cow was coming down Lombard Street when she was pursued and attacked by a large dog. She raised one of her feet and kicked him, killing him "as dead a Julius Caesar."Aug. 20: At the annual commencement at Yale College, New Haven, on Thursday, several pick pockets were present, who relieved the pockets of several of the visitors of their contents.From The Sun Aug. 14-20, 1894Aug. 14: Last night a very merry party of young people, riding along Baltimore Street in an open car, filled the air with snatches of melodious song that floated upward to the ears of dwellers along the route.

DR. FRED HELLINGER of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is an economist, not a physician. But at the Seventh International Conference on AIDS last week, he delivered an utterly bone-chilling prognosis.Forget everything you've heard about cost, he said: The old forecasts put the lifetime expense of treating an AIDS patient somewhere between $40,000 and $75,000. Unfortunately, this guess fails to factor in the relatively new costs of early treatment for people who have the AIDS virus (HIV)

Dr. John Chandler Hume Sr., a former dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and an authority on the treatment of venereal diseases, died Monday of pneumonia at St. Agnes Hospital. He was 86.Dr. Hume was an outspoken advocate for financing and public education programs to halt the spread of venereal diseases.Soft-spoken, witty and known for his puns, Dr. Hume earned a reputation for being in love with his work."His mother used to say, 'I wish we could have just one dinner-table conversation without the subject of syphilis coming up,' " said his daughter, Susan H. Artes of Baltimore.

BEIJING -- China, which as recently as last spring was blaming AIDS on "the rotten mentality and lifestyle of capitalist society," has begun to acknowledge its own AIDS problem and is seeking the West's help to combat the feared spread of the fatal disease here."