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Almost any side effect of medication is preferable to active mental illness. Your mood-drug article appropriately points out some serious side effects of taking medication. As a person who is mentally ill, however, I would put up with many additional side effects, because lithium freed me from the slavery of my illness. MARK HASKINS Lambertville, Mich.
RESEARCHERS' JUSTIFICATIONS
David Ho's attempt to justify the outrageous AIDS-related research being performed on HIV-infected Africans in Africa is inexcusable [VIEWPOINT, Sept. 29]. Similar research practices performed on death-row inmates in the U.S. would elicit an immediate federal criminal investigation. Ho's justification is in part an echo of arguments used by eugenics researchers and the team that contrived the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. The fact that there was patient consent does not do much to help Ho's argument. KOFI ALLAN Pomona, Calif.
I have no doubt that Dr. Ho richly deserved to be named TIME's Man of the Year for 1996. And he certainly merits the respect he has earned around the world as an AIDS researcher. But when he attempts to discern a difference between what is morally acceptable in the U.S. and what can be tolerated abroad, Ho may be beyond the area of his true expertise. JOHN BLACK New York City
What Africa is doing is inhumane. How can anyone with a sound mind and common sense administer a placebo--for research purposes--to a pregnant woman with AIDS? CHAD J. PROPER Plattsburgh, N.Y.
THE BIG GIVEAWAY
Congratulations to Ted Turner for understanding that making a profit is only one side of the coin [NATION, Sept. 29]. Without its other side--generosity--the entire enterprise is unbalanced. The precarious and destructive results of getting and not giving can be felt all over the earth, making corporate businessmen, arguably, the most dangerous men alive. We can only hope that this is the beginning of a trend to balance the scales. JEANNE C. WILKINSON New York City
First we had Hanoi Jane, and now we have United Nations Ted. What a great American family. What about Americans helping Americans? Aren't there enough problems that require attention? WILLIAM P. O'BRIEN Poway, Calif.
PRESS REVIEWS
The colorizing of the New York Times may please many of its readers, but the strength of the paper is its sober coverage of real news [PRESS, Sept. 29]. It has not succumbed to the many pressures of the marketplace and become a rag. "Snooty" and "austere" are not good characterizations of the Times. Being "out of the mainstream" is a compliment to today's crazy journalistic milieu. RUTH KAUFMANN Rochester, N.Y.