Letters: Aug. 23, 1982

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Herpes Epidemic

To the Editors:

Your article on this incurable virus [Aug. 2] described a feared and often misunderstood health problem in a brief, comprehensive and understandable manner. An educated public is essential in learning to live with the disease and the threat of contracting it, and ultimately in avoiding its propagation.

Eileen J. Bell

Fullerton, Calif.

Perhaps today's sexual liberation is more restrictive than old-fashioned morality ever was!

Frank W. Schnitzler

Manasquan, N.J.

Although your intentions are laudable, you seem to taunt those individuals who are not stern believers in sexual austerity. The message appears to be that anyone who gets herpes certainly deserves it and that it is a damn good thing this epidemic came along to bring back the good old days.

Joel Ratner

Beachwood, Ohio

The litany changes. It used to be "Your place or mine?" Now it is "Do you have herpes?"

Willis O. Preston Jr.

Newark, Del.

I never had a chance to become a sexual hedonist because I was too old for the sexual revolution. Now, thanks to herpes, I can stop regretting having missed it.

Robert Young

Deerfield, III.

Thanks to herpes, people have begun to question the doubtful freedom of the sexual revolution in Western society. It is time to realize that there is more to human life than just easy sex and superficial enjoyment.

Elisabeth Reichenbach

West Berlin

The story on the herpes epidemic not only reports public hysteria but participates in promoting it. One simple, helpful fact, vital to prevention, is that herpes is almost exclusively transmitted during its active phase. Herpes victims do not have to withdraw emotionally or sexually during the dormant phase, which is most of the time.

The majority of herpes sufferers are not destroyed or unalterably changed by their condition. Panic only leads to stress, and stress is a major contributor to recurrences. We favor rational education and an expanded research effort as the best ways to fight herpes.

Robert Weinreb, Executive Director

National Herpes Research Foundation

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

I wonder how many readers started itching, burning, looking for lesions, reviewing past activities and muttering promises about the future. Good grief, you could be changing America's sexual behavior more than Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione combined.

Diane Morrisett

Austin

Pipeline Problems

When will President Reagan begin to realize that the European allies are not his marionettes to manipulate but sovereign states with their own requirements and foreign policies? We do not want to be lectured on the potential risks of the pipeline deal with the U.S.S.R. [Aug. 2] by someone who is selling grain to the Soviet Union. This impudent attitude, along with America's high interest rates, which are seriously endangering European economies, is bound eventually to wreck the Western alliance.

Robert Gruber

Munich

I.R.A. Bombings