National News Roundup
The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that most school-age children and adolescents with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and related diseases be allowed to attend school "in an unrestricted manner."
The only exceptions, the aap said, would be children with aids who "lack control over body secretions, display behavior such as biting, or have open sores that cannot be covered." These children should not remain in school, the pediatric physicians said.
The aap announced seven recommendations concerning school attendance by children with aids at its annual meeting in San Antonio last week. The aap guidelines closely parallel recommendations developed by the federal Centers for Disease Control in August. (See Education Week, Sept. 11, 1985.) Like the cdc, the physicians' group opposes mandatory screening of all children for detection of aids and aids-related diseases.
The group released the guidelines "in part to help reassure parents that the problem of aids, particularly in children, is not a significant threat," said Susan Nowicki, the aap's director of communications.
"Of the more than 13,500 cases of aids reported to date, none are known to have been transmitted in the school, day-care, or foster-care setting," the aap said in releasing its recommendations.
The group also recommended that every school adopt "routine procedures for handling blood and body fluids," whether or not children with aids attend the school.