Presidential Address: American Foundation for AIDS Research

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And there's another aspect of teaching values that needs to
be mentioned here. As individuals, we have a moral obligation
not to endanger others -- and that can mean endangering others
with a gun, with a car, or with a virus. If a person has reason
to believe he or she may be a carrier, that person has a moral
duty to be tested for AIDS. Human decency requires it. And the
reason is very simple -- innocent people are being infected by
this virus and some of them are going to acquire AIDS and die.
And let me tell you a story about innocent, unknowing
people. A doctor in a rural county in Kentucky treated a woman
who caught the AIDS virus from her husband, who was an I.V. drug
user. They later got divorced, neither knowing they were
infected. They remarried other people, and now they've
transmitted the disease to their new partners.
Just as most individuals don't know they carry the virus, no
one knows to what extent the virus has infected our entire
society. AIDS is surreptitiously spreading throughout our
population, and yet we have no accurate measure of its scope. It
is time we knew exactly what we were facing. And that is why I
support routine testing.
I have asked the Department of Health and Human Services to
determine as soon as possible the extent to which the AIDS virus
has penetrated our society and to predict its future dimensions.
I've also asked H.H.S. to add the AIDS virus to the list of
contagious diseases for which immigrants and aliens seeking

permanent residence in the United States can be denied entry.