Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 8, 1993 TAG: 9303080114
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DOCTOR: FEAR OF AIDS EXCEEDS THREAT
The state supplies Virginia's prison guards with gloves, masks and basic training but little else to quell the fear of violent contact with HIV-infected inmates.As more and more prisoners test positive for the virus that causes AIDS - 191 reported cases in Virginia prisons as of last September - the reassurances of doctors do little to satisfy those who serve on the front lines of prison security.
"What we have is an epidemic of fear rather than an epidemic of HIV," said Dr. B.L. Kapil, the state Corrections Department's chief physician.
"AIDS is very difficult to transmit," Kapil said. "You can only get it by having unprotected sex . . . or needle-sharing. Yet the fear is absolutely disproportionate. I'm fully aware of the anxieties and concerns."
Long before the December attack by an inmate that guards fear is infected with human immunodeficiency virus inside a Pulaski prison, state corrections officials say they were examining ways to protect worried guards from coming in contact with the deadly virus.
But top-level officials as well as the correctional officers in the trenches acknowledge that the best-intentioned precautions often evaporate when violence breaks out.
"You can't say, `Hold on a minute, let me get my gloves on,' " said Al Hollar, assistant superintendent of the Pulaski Correctional Unit, also known as Camp One, where the attack took place.
"It's extremely cumbersome to deal with every inmate that way. If we see blood, we know right away we need to take precautions," he said. "There is a difference though, in a combat situation. Things like plastic gloves and elastic face masks aren't going to do a whole lot of good."
By the time correctional officers had subdued the belligerent inmate, Frank Darryl Allen, during two separate attacks Dec. 16 and 17, it was too late to put on gloves and masks.
Blood had already been spilled, and although Allen had no gun, he allegedly taunted guards with what he considered to be a superior weapon - the threat that he was carrying the deadly AIDS virus.
"He said, `I've got something for you, [expletive],' " said Capt. Samuel "Steve" Montgomery, who was scratched as he and three other officers tried to wrestle the inmate to the ground. "He bit one of my officers at that time, scratched both my hands, and knocked two teeth out of my sergeant's mouth."
Test results a secret
At first, Montgomery said the threat did not register. But when the unit's physician arrived on the scene, the realization that officers might be dealing with an HIV-positive inmate hit home.
"I called the doctor in and the doctor kept asking him a lots of questions" about potential problems with hepatitis and a liver ailment, Montgomery said. "That's when I knew the doctor knew something I didn't."
The next day Allen, who had been segregated from other prisoners and the regular dormitory-style prison setting, threatened to start a fire in his cell.
Montgomery's right hand was sprained from the attack the day before, so another group of officers entered the cell to take out the mattress and other state property. That's when the inmate allegedly bit the fourth officer and told them he had AIDS.
For Montgomery and his colleagues, it is a painful irony that because of state regulations involving the privacy of AIDS patients, the Corrections Department still cannot legally reveal whether their attacker has tested positive for HIV. That information will likely not be forthcoming unless it is introduced when Allen goes on trial for assault.
"They led us to believe he did," Montgomery said. "It's an assumption."
An assistant warden at Augusta Correctional Center, where Allen was taken after the incident, confirmed that Allen had been tested.
"I'm sure we have tested him," said Jack Lee, the assistant for operations. But Augusta's head nurse, Sandra Murphy, said health workers are bound by law not to reveal the results except to the affected inmate.
It is a nightmare that haunts every correctional officer, and it is why there have been periodic calls for expanded testing to isolate those in prison who have the disease.
"Some people want everyone tested upon commitment to the department," said Mike Leininger, legislative liaison to the state Corrections Department. But he said the department, sensitive to the privacy issue, does not routinely test for AIDS.
In the late 1980s, the General Assembly went so far as to appoint a task force to study the avalanche of legislation generated in response to more and more frightening information about the disease.
"There was a tremendous urge to act as out of fear and do all sorts of wild and woolly things," said former Suffolk Del. Samuel Glasscock, who served on the AIDS commission and presided over hearings on dozens of bills as chairman of the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions.
But after listening to hours of testimony from health-care professionals, law-enforcement officials and others, Glasscock said the commission aimed for a middle ground that would secure the privacy of the diseased individuals but provide needed information for those caring for them.
"I think it was sort of trying to strike a balance," Glasscock said. "If you need to know, then let's get the information to you. If you don't need to know, then we won't."
In the case of state prisoners, "There was also the question of, if you tested everybody there, what do you then do with that information? If that information gets into the population, does that mean someone is going to throttle an inmate who had the virus?"
Assume all are infected
There are three situations now in which an inmate is tested, Kapil said: if an inmate appears to fit a high-risk profile, if the doctor believes the test is medically indicated, or if the prisoner requests to be tested for the disease.
But the Corrections Department teaches everyone from correctional officers to nurses to treat all inmates as if they are carrying communicable diseases, including hepatitis B and the deadly virus that causes AIDS.
Correctional officers said they had received a several-hour course.
"We train for those kinds of situations using universal precautions," said Paul Broughton, administrator of employee relations and training for the Corrections Department. "Always assuming the worst."
The training also helps defuse some of the mythology surrounding AIDS, said Forrest Powell, chief of program operations.
"We've done more work about desensitizing people about the modes of transmission," he said. "It's not as highly transmittable as they originally thought it was."
In fact, Kapil said, "There is not one documented case of transmission from inmate to officer."
Who should know?
But that knowledge has done little to ease the troubled minds of the four Pulaski officers. State law requires that after every such incident, all those involved be given a baseline test to determine if they carry the AIDS antibodies. Montgomery and Randolph Brooks, who was bitten during the Dec. 16 incident, say they will have their three-month blood test later this month.
"Ideally, a lot of folks in our business feel they should know more," Said Hollar, the Pulaski unit assistant superintendent.
Del. Tommy Baker, R-Radford, succeeded last month in persuading the General Assembly that correctional officers, like police, should know whether prisoners they transport have infectious diseases. The legislation awaits the signature of Gov. Douglas Wilder.
Montgomery, one of the guards who was scratched, understands the constitutional issues surrounding the AIDS issue, and why the state does not identify those inmates who are HIV-positive except to the health teams treating them.
"Personally, I'm not sure that we all should know who's got AIDS," he said. "Nonetheless, I am positive that they should not be sent to a field unit with an open dormitory."
Randy Helt, who is organizing a correctional officers' union through the Virginia Alliance of State Employees, said the notification issue is a big concern for the guards he represents.
"Training plays an important part of it, but you have to make sure you know exactly what you're dealing with," he said.
Richard Young, the Corrections Department's regional administrator in Roanoke, said he believes the incident at Pulaski has been blown out of proportion. Although it is rare for such an attack to occur at a minimum-security facility such as Pulaski, he said inmates at larger medium- and maximum-security prisons are known to periodically taunt officers with the threat of AIDS, whether they have the disease or not.
"I can understand how anyone has a concern about not wanting to contract AIDS," Young said. "But at the same time, there are not as many inmates who have AIDS as the public thinks there are. There is not a widespread epidemic of AIDS in prison."
Meanwhile, Allen remains at Augusta, where last week he was allowed to rejoin the general prison population.
Lee said the decision was made to return him to the prison's regular single-cell setting because "he had not caused any problem in our segregated unit."