Health Care Personnel and AIDS

To the Editor. —The review of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) by Landesman and Vieira 1 in the December 1983Archivescontains a statement at the bottom of the second column of page 2308, which I quote, "There are only four cases of AIDS among health care personnel wherein acquisition of the disease could be attributed to contact with patients with AIDS or clinical specimens from patients with AIDS. The risk to health professionals is, therefore, presumed to be small." While no reference is given for this statement, it is presumably based on a report published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report . 2 It should be noted that in this report concerning health care personnel who contract AIDS, it is clearly stated in the first paragraph of the article, "The source of AIDS in these four patients is unclear and none had documented contact with another AIDS patient."