Criminal behavior.

In the August 29 issue you published an editorial titled "Is Lying About HIV a Crime?" Unfortunately, you did not publish the dissenting opinion [that appeared on Advocate.com]. You should have printed both points of view. After all, the dissenting opinion was more logical. Not to mention you completely contradicted yourselves by also publishing "They're Peddling Death." In the editorial you claimed that it was the individual's responsibility to protect oneself against HIV, yet in the "Peddling" article you claimed it should be the responsibility of the party promoter or even the government or AIDS organizations. True, it is up to each individual to protect oneself against unsafe practices and the risk of HIV, and it is also true that it is our responsibility as a community to teach and provide the safe practices. But it should be a crime if someone knowingly and purposefully infects someone with HIV.

ASHLEY WAY Pittsburgh, Pa.

Your editorial opposing criminal penalties for those who lie about their HIV status to deliberately expose their partners to the virus is the most reprehensible piece of illogic I've read in a gay publication in many years. It states, "There is a criminal case to be made if it can be proved a person intended to harm a sex partner by infecting them with HIV." Well, don't you realize that telling your partner you're negative when you're not, then proceeding to fuck him without a condom, is intending him such harm? Is "jailing lotharios for simply misrepresenting their HIV status" a responsible description of the issue? Is your "slippery slope" logic intended to be absurd? Is lying about having the flu a true parallel? And are you really serious about calling this "what goes on between two consenting adults"? Isn't the person being infected consenting to sex with someone who is assuredly negative? And, finally, how is having such laws (against what you actually call "bad boyfriends"!) a surrender of power? Do you also object to laws against gay-on-gay rape, murder, or theft? It seems to me they are an added safeguard against a supremely callous behavior with extremely tragic consequences.

DAVID MOONEYHAN Atlanta, Ga.

I agree with your editorial that every person is responsible for his/her own health when having sex. Just assume that everyone you meet is positive. However, your advice that a negative HIV test is grounds for having unsafe sex with a partner is erroneous. Most people convert to HIV positivity within six months of infection, but some can take up to one year to convert. This creates a window of six to 12 months in which someone who has been infected with HIV can unknowingly spread the disease while thinking they are HIV-negative. The only sure test is an HIV viral load, which checks for the presence of the virus itself. That said, I have one patient who has been positive for at least 10 years and has never had a detectable viral load and has never been on HIV meds. However, he is positive. So the best documentation of HIV negativity would be an HIV viral lead that is undetectable and a negative HIV test.

ROY W. FINLEY, MD St. Petersburg, Fla.