Changing The Rules

For some time, Americans dying from AIDS and cancer have been going to Mexico to obtain drugs not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The agency may have slowed the traffic last week by ruling that experimental drugs will be made more quickly available to patients with "immediately life-threatening diseases." AIDS sufferers could be affected, although an FDA source noted that as yet the agency knows of no drug qualifying under the ruling.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control revealed that three hospital workers had contracted the AIDS virus after their skin came in contact with infected patients' blood. The three, none of whom is known to be in an AIDS high-risk group, are among the first health workers infected by means other than contaminated needles. One, who suffers from acne, was splattered in the face and mouth with blood when a stopper popped off a tube. Another, an emergency-room worker, applied pressure to a patient's bleeding arm with her chapped hands. A CDC epidemiologist said that such cases are extremely rare and should not be a cause for alarm.