DENTIST MUST TREAT AIDS PATIENTS

A Louisiana dentist violated the Americans with Disabilities Act when he turned away one patient who had AIDS and another who was HIV-positive, a federal judge has ruled. In the first court decision on such a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, District Judge Stanwood Duval in New Orleans rejected dentist Drew Morvant's argument that the patients could have infected him or his staff. The judge is slated to decide damages in May. The government pressed a similar case in Texas, where an HIV-infected man got $100,000 from a dentist in an out of court settlement. "It's an uncertain area of the law," says TIME New York correspondent Adam Cohen, who notes that while the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the ADA covers victims of some diseases, it has not issued any decisions on whether the law applies to AIDS patients. "This is definitely a landmark case."