The Fall 1989 edition of LEADERSHIP included an article "When AIDS Comes to Church" by William E. Amos, Jr. Among the responses we received to that issue was this letter from a LEADERSHIP reader who has experience on the other side of this subject.

In 1982, I was employed as director of nurses at a small rural hospital in Washington State. My wife, an LPN, has a rare form of hemophilia found in women. Since she was to undergo a hysterectomy, she required a special blood product to prevent excessive bleeding. During surgery she received 70 units, which I'd ordered from a Portland, Oregon, blood bank.

At the time, there was very little information about AIDS, and no blood products were regularly tested until May 1985.

To make a long story short, Bonnie and I are both infected with the AIDS virus received from the contaminated blood products. I have not been able to work for the past five years due to the disabling effects of this virus. Bonnie is disabled, too.

It was more than three years before ...