Most people think that fear should have no place in the cool, reasoned realm of medicine. But its presence, strengthened by prejudice and denial, has whipsawed the public response to AIDS -- from early dismissal to doomsday and back again -- ever since the epidemic began seven years ago. Last week, in a sensationalistic book guaranteed to punch panic buttons across the nation, Sex Therapists Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson triggered an uproar in the scientific community. Contrary to accepted wisdom and to all that is so far known by medicine, they claim the "AIDS virus is now running rampant in the heterosexual community" and can be transmitted through casual contact. Says Masters: "We are sounding an important warning. A lot of people think we are not in a serious situation. We think we are."
Together with Co-Author Dr. Robert Kolodny, who directed the research for Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS (Grove Press), the first couple of sex treatment charge the government with "benevolent deception" in downplaying the extent and nature of the epidemic. Among their assertions:
-- At least 3 million Americans, twice the official estimate, are infected with the AIDS virus.
-- The risk of catching AIDS from a transfusion is seven times as great as that admitted by blood banks.
-- The AIDS virus -- theoretically at least -- can be transmitted via mosquito bites, French kissing, toilet seats -- and by sliding into second base (if, by chance, an infected player has bled onto it).
Reaction from AIDS experts has ranged from "drivel" to "hogwash." U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop promptly called the work "irresponsible" and accused Masters and Johnson of "scare tactics." "There are no scientific data to support these alarming statements," warned Dr. Stephen Joseph, New York City's health commissioner. "They pile their statements, each holding a thin layer of established fact, on top of one another like slices of bologna." Many criticized the trio for first publishing their findings in a mass-market book, which was excerpted last week in Newsweek, instead of in a scientific journal where their data would have been carefully scrutinized. A Chicago Tribune editorial blasted the "panic-peddling book," and the New York Times decried its "false alarms about AIDS." Callers seeking clarification jammed AIDS hot lines. Fumed Epidemiologist Andrew Moss of the University of California at San Francisco: "This is the AIDS equivalent of shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theater."
Crucial to the argument set forth in Crisis is the authors' contention that at least 3 million Americans are infected with the AIDS virus. Masters and his associates arrived at that figure by a fairly straightforward calculation: if there are 50 to 100 symptomless carriers of the AIDS virus for every case of actual disease, as was first noted in 1985, and there were 45,000 cases of AIDS in the U.S. in late 1987, then one would now expect about 3,375,000 people (75 X 45,000) to be infected with the virus.