Not Condoning but Fighting AIDS

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley has proposed a $25,000 city program to expand the distribution of bleach and condoms to the intravenous drug community, an important and useful extension of the efforts to contain the AIDS epidemic.

This is, as the mayor makes clear, really a county responsibility, and he has made no secret of his hope that his initiative will encourage the county Board of Supervisors to reverse its earlier rejection of the program. The plan had been recommended by the County AIDS Commission, with virtually unanimous support from public health officials.

Four of the five supervisors voted against the AIDS program, because, they argued, any distribution of bleach would appear to be sanctioning illegal intravenous drug use. Household bleach serves as an effective way to sterilize needles, thus reducing the risk of transmitting through shared needles the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

Under Bradley’s proposal, five community-based organizations serving areas of the city with high incidences of AIDS would be given $5,000 each for the purchase of simple kits that would include a small bottle of bleach, a latex condom, a water-based lubricant for the condom and a pamphlet explaining the use of the material.

This has proven to be an effective means of reaching a hard-to-reach population that, in some areas, has been a vector of the spread of AIDS to the heterosexual community at large. There is no evidence that the distribution of bleach or condoms has resulted in increased drug use or sexual activity. But the bleach-and-condom combination serves to remind drug abusers that they can protect themselves and their sexual partners.

The five agencies chosen by the city already are engaged in outreach programs, including the distribution of bleach-and-condom kits. But they are hard pressed for funds. The city money can buy as many as 62,500 kits, a significant expansion of agency programs.

Bleach-and-condom distribution has proved controversial in other areas as well. Orange County supervisors turned down a similar proposal after the Los Angeles County board voted against it. In San Diego, however, state and federal grants going directly to community-based organizations have supported an effective program of bleach-and-condom distribution among drug users.