Sexual Contact

A 12-year-old boy sat in a San Fernando courtroom a month ago as his "Big Brother," an accountant who volunteered to be his special friend, pleaded guilty to molesting him and four other boys. In a Van Nuys courtroom two weeks ago, another Big Brother, a noted UCLA psychology professor, pleaded no contest to similar charges. And a third Big Brother faces a preliminary hearing this week in San Fernando on allegations that he had sexual contact with his teen-age charge.

A retired U.S. Army sergeant is being tried in this ancient Bavarian city on the controversial charge of engaging in sexual activity after learning that he had tested positive for the AIDS virus. The case is the first to be brought to court under a new Bavarian state regulation dealing with AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

A 28-year-old Leningrad woman diagnosed as a carrier of the AIDS virus was released from a hospital today after signing a pledge to have no sexual contact for five years, the official Soviet press agency Tass reported. It said her undertaking to forswear sex was in accordance with a decree adopted in August. If she fails to keep to her pledge, she faces up to eight years in prison.

A 55-year-old Irvine businessman was convicted Thursday on five counts of selling cocaine to teen-age girls and two counts of having sexual contact with one of them three years ago. Richard James McLane testified at his trial that he did have a sexual interest in teen-age girls and liked to videotape them in various states of undress. But he denied providing any of them with drugs and also denied having sexual contact with one of them.

California's county jails are convenient way stations for the AIDS virus as it makes its deadly way around the state. They are overcrowded and their populations frequently include homosexuals and intravenous drug users, groups at the highest risk of contracting acquired immune deficiency syndrome. But it is forbidden for inmates to possess condoms, one of the few accepted safeguards against the deadly virus. The only exception is conjugal visits, when wives may bring condoms.

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop says he has been barraged with hate mail from fundamentalist Christians over his report calling for sex education to curb the spread of AIDS. "No conservative Christian leader, no conservative Christian publication, to my knowlege, has been critical of the surgeon general's report or of me, but many constituents of those denominations and movements have been," Koop said this week after appearing on "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Throughout history, devastating epidemics have struck the world from time to time, but there has never been one like AIDS. This is a disease that is not transmitted easily or casually--not by sneezing, not by touching, not by being in the same room with an infected person. It is transmitted by sexual contact or directly through the blood, and in this country, it has largely been confined to two groups--homosexual men and drug addicts--among whom it has wreaked havoc.

A Superior Court judge in Sacramento ruled Friday that two statements submitted by followers of extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche are false and should be stricken from the voter pamphlet for Proposition 64, the AIDS measure placed on the Nov. 4 ballot by LaRouche supporters. However, the judge overruled Secretary of State March Fong Eu and allowed the LaRouche group to keep the name of state Health Director Ken Kizer in its ballot arguments.