Three cheers for Bangor dentist, Dr. Randon Bragdon, who recognizes and lives by his duty to do no harm to his patients. For not putting his staff and patients at risk for contracting HIV and other life-threatening and disabling infectious diseases, he is being targeted by the Maine Human Rights Commission.

Someone once said the law is an ass, but that goes doubly for the Maine Human Rights Commission which is thumbing its nose at the uninfected majority of people. I think it should be renamed the Maine Inhuman Rights Commission. Ron J. Stauble Sr. Unity

Vincent Drosdik (Letter, BDN, Dec. 29) supports the actions of Randon Bragdon in refusing to treat in his office clients with HIV and-or other infectious diseases, saying, “… He should be praised for not exposing his regular patients to the possibility of contracting the AIDS virus.” Dr. Bragdon, in a Dec. 19 BDN article, contends that AIDS and HIV patients cannot be treated safely in a dentist’s office.

Drosdik seems to be missing a very important point. Dr. Bragdon’s argument that known HIV cases should be treated with a higher standard of care to avoid contagion is the equivalent of saying, “If I think a person is NOT contagious, then I can be less careful about the sterility of my office, equipment, and the personnel.”

What about those patients Dr. Bragdon treats who know they have HIV, or any other much more common and much more easily transmitted disease, who don’t tell him out of fear that he won’t treat them? What about those patients he treats who actually don’t know that they have a contagious disease? If Dr. Bragdon is treating these people with a lower standard of sterility, then he is playing fast and loose with his own health and that of all his personnel and patients. If, on the other hand, he is treating all his patients with an equally high standard of cleanliness and sterility, then neither he nor they have anything to fear from HIV or any other contagious disease; and if that’s the case, then his argument against treating HIV patients clearly becomes a smokescreen for his own homophobia. Jean Vermette Bangor