Hunting Cures

To the Editors:

Reading the story on disease detectives [July 4] was a rewarding experience for a public-health professional. It is time that epidemiologists and other public-health workers receive the credit they have earned over the years, which is frequently given to the medical profession.

Abbe Janov-Litvack

New York City

Your article on disease control was fascinating, and your depiction of the AIDS crisis sensitively written. More frightening than the disease are the attitudes of some people in the mainstream of society. Comments like those of the Rev. Greg Dixon, who warns that America will be destroyed if homosexuals are not stopped, present a greater threat to us than any infection from a virus or organism.

Martin J. McGlynn

Dedham, Mass.

Any homosexual man who has had anal sex with more than 60 partners a year should not ask society to cure him of AIDS. Let the gay community fund the research for its own problems.

Percy Wiley

Portland, Ore.

Your article shows how AIDS is giving the enemies of lesbians and gay men seemingly justifiable reason to perpetuate the discrimination that has been practiced against these groups. The unwarranted hysteria now taking place over AIDS makes it imperative that state and federal governments enact laws immediately to safeguard the rights of lesbians and gay men in employment, housing, medical care and social services.

Allen W. Kratz, President

New Jersey Lesbian-Gay Coalition

New Brunswick, N.J.

In your article, you left the impression that I had recommended that active homosexuals be "barred" from the food-handling business because of AIDS. Not so. The danger from homosexual food handlers is not AIDS, but the spread of enteric diseases (the so-called gay bowel syndrome), several of which are epidemic among gays and are spread by contaminated food.

Pat Buchanan, Columnist

Tribune Company Syndicate, Inc.

New York City

I find homosexuality repugnant, disgusting and morally wrong. However, the attitude and behavior of those, especially health professionals, who refuse their services to homosexuals are even more deplorable. Homosexuals need help, not hatred. Whether AIDS is a scourge from God is not clear. What is evident is that sexual promiscuity is dangerous, and that danger must outweigh whatever transitory pleasure is gained.

Scott A. Sterling

Austin

Sakharov's Strategy

In spite of the problems involved in controlling nuclear weapons, as discussed in your article "A Plea for Nuclear Balance" [July 4], I believe there is very little chance that the major powers will engage in nuclear war in the near future. There is no conceivable advantage to be gained by any party in such a conflict. Instead, the first nuclear aggressor will in all likelihood be a relatively isolated country that is affluent enough to possess the bomb but perceives its survival to be endangered by some local dispute. More attention should be paid to controlling nuclear weapons in those areas of the world than between the superpowers.

Kent Peacock

Toronto

Sally's Sacrifice?

As a woman, I felt a special pride when I watched Sally Ride aboard Challenger [July 4]. But why couldn't she accept the flowers? Why didn't she carry lipstick or makeup? Now that women can do anything men can do, must they sacrifice being women?

Lynn Hall

Anderson, Ind.

Sally Ride's spaceflight has corroborated the first impression I had of the U.S. when I arrived on its shores as an immigrant from Paris: American women are out of this world.

George Javor

Marquette, Mich.

Ironically, all the attention to Ride's flight reflects a failure in American society. The final victory for women's rights will not come until there are women astronauts, women Supreme Court Justices, and women corporate presidents, and nobody pays attention.

Roger M. Harris

Shelby, N.C.

Condemning Apartheid

Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said nothing new when he called South Africa's system of apartheid morally wrong [July 4]. But then he had the audacity to reaffirm the U.S. position of encouraging the Botha regime to make "small reforms" instead of advocating economic sanctions against the government of South Africa. If the Reagan Administration had any foresight, it would be devising a plan to put the U.S. on the side of those working to free South Africa from apartheid.

Ounzuba Kemeh-Gama

New York City

Marxist Banker

Your story on Janos Fekete, "Hungary's Savvy Banker" [June 27], sounds like an advertisement from the National Bank of Hungary. As long as Hungary belongs to the Warsaw Pact, its bankers and businessmen cannot seriously be considered independent thinkers. After Poland's failure, the Kremlin is using Hungary in its desperate search for Western credits. Although you assert that Hungary has the "most efficient economy in the Communist world," the truth is that the Communist economic system simply does not work.

Andrzej Lewandowski

Wembley, Australia

Janos Fekete. His name could not be more Hungarian. He is introduced as the favorite Eastern banker of Western bankers, the man who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to keep the Hungarian economy afloat. Yet he is described by you as an avowed Marxist and master at using Western financial methods. If the Communist system had been established in the Western nations at the same time it was forced on the countries of Eastern Europe, where would Janos Fekete have gone to borrow all those millions of dollars?

Jaroslav J. Jilek

Jacksonville

Apple's Top Banana

In your article about the Aspen design conference [June 27], the reference to Steven Jobs, chairman of the board of Apple Computer Inc. might be interpreted as suggesting that Jobs considers design "dispensable gift wrapping." On the contrary, Apple is one of the most design-conscious corporate enterprises in America, whose commitment to design goes beyond simple marketing considerations. The most telling evidence of this commitment is exemplified by the products themselves, and in this regard Apple measures up very well.

Milton Glaser

New York City

Who Is Hispanic?

In your cover story on Los Angeles, America's uneasy new melting pot, I notice that TIME calls all Spanish-speaking people in America "Hispanics" [June 13]. I question your use of the term. The only people who can legitimately call themselves Hispanic are those who are white and come from the Iberian peninsula of Spain and Portugal, which is the land of "Hispania." If anyone who speaks Spanish is, as you say, a Hispanic, by the same logic all English-speaking Americans, whether they be white, black, mulatto or Indian, should be called Anglos.

Carlos Garcia-Espina

Madrid

In the U.S., the term Hispanic has evolved to refer collectively to those people who speak Spanish or whose origins are in Spain or its former colonies. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.