Tuesday, April 27, 1999

THE POST

Athens, Ohio * An Independent Daily Newspaper * Ohio University
Stats should stand alone
THE POST

Within the next month, the New York state health authorities will decide whether to make doctors and laboratories report to the health department the names of people who tested positive for HIV and to ask patients to name past and present sexual or needle partners.

A person's right to privacy outweighs any possibility that this plan could help combat the spread of HIV, which is its intended purpose. The number of patients with HIV already are tracked by health departments, so this plan is not a solution to the virus' spread and is instead an invasion of privacy.

This proposal would permit hospitals, doctors and clinics to release a patient's HIV information to someone who might have been exposed to the virus, for example an ambulance driver or probation officer.

Although there would be no penalty imposed on anyone who did not comply with partner notification, to put patients in that situation is not right. The collection of case numbers, instead of putting faces to those numbers, is enough to paint an accurate picture of the disease. Just because a person with HIV has sex or shares a needle with someone does not necessarily mean that person will contract the virus.

If this plan continues, it might discourage possible HIV patients from being tested. Fear of the release of such information and the threat of stigmatization could scare off those who need help.

HIV, and the possibility that it leads to AIDS, is a serious problem that continues to baffle doctors and scientists. A person infected with this disease should not have to give up his/her or an acquaintance's privacy when dealing with testing or treatment.

Scholarly cry for attention
THE POST

One man has raised $170 million to send low-income children to private schools.

Theodore J. Forstmann, a billionaire Wall Street financier, has received 1,237,360 applications for scholarships, or nearly one out of every 50 American school children. Forty thousand of those applicants were chosen by a computerized lottery to receive money to attend the private school of their choice.

This program, which is the largest privately financed scholarship program in the country, is a tremendous help to children who were awarded the scholarships, which will amount between $600 to $1,600 per year for four years. The national average for tuition at a parochial school is $2,500.

Forstmann should be commended for giving the money to individuals. The money will be much better spent on those 40,000 children than it would be if it were fostered into a general education fund, where it would be just a small drop in the bucket. Kids are more likely to try to perform up to higher standards when they are awarded the money personally. Forstmann had help raising this money from many famous people including baseball star Sammy Sosa, poet Maya Angelou, actor Will Smith, talk show host Oprah Winfrey, General Colin Powell and politicians including Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY).

This kind of national support from all realms of the country to try to get children money to leave public schools and enter private schools should send a strong message to the federal government. A message that, by now, should be loud and clear about the public school system - there is something wrong.

The federal government needs to respond to this mandate and do something about public schools because right now it seems that Forstmann, and not the government, is the only one taking an active role in bettering children's education.


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