Disturbing studies.

Even more disturbing than the "scientific McCarthyism" that lies behind the recent interference in federally funded research on AIDS ["Hit List on the Hill," December 23] is its timing. In several of the populations these projects seek to understand, including African-Americans, young people, and gay men, HIV infection rates are increasing for the first time since 1996. This is a climate in which we cannot afford to allow science to be second-guessed by politics or prejudice.

For more than 100 years, the peer review process at the National Institutes of Health has been a model of rigorous, unbiased evaluation emulated by its fellow funding organizations and admired by other nations. If scientists cannot study this epidemic in an atmosphere unclouded by ideology, HIV and AIDS wilt always be surrounded by enough mystery to keep us from finding a cure.

Rowena Johnston, New York, N.Y.

Your article complains that right-wing conservatives are investigating research grants made by the National Institutes of Health and may terminate those they find offensive. Pardon me, but I don't want my tax dollars being spent on "measuring sexual arousal to porno movies" either. There are very few things the federal government is constitutionally authorized to do, and research is not one of them. It "all comes down to who spends your money--you or the politicians. In a Libertarian society, all research would be private: If you are interested in some area of research, you write them a check. That way we don't have battles over public funding of research. What is the advantage of sending our dollars to Washington and having politicians decide how to spend them?

Nick Kyriazi, Pittsburgh, Pa.