Betty Price, a Republican representing an Atlanta suburb, made the inquiry at a video-taped meeting of the Georgia House of Representatives this week while discussing HIV diagnoses and intravenous drug use across the state.

She also referred to the greater number of people living as "carriers" of the disease now, compared to "in the past [when] they died more readily."

"And I don't want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it," Price said in the committee meeting, while discussing what they were "legally able to do" about HIV patients in the state, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other local media outlets.

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"Is there an ability, since I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. So we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise or are there any methods legally that we could do that would curtail the spread?" she asked.

Price pointed to the severity of the problem, citing the "huge population" of people diagnosed with the disease who are now living longer with modern medicine while remaining active carriers of the disease.

"It seems to me it's almost frightening the number of people who are living that are ... carriers," she said. "Whereas in the past they died more readily, then at that point they were not posing a risk."

Price's comments immediately earned criticism online and elsewhere. Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, told STATnews that Price’s comments were “incredibly disturbing” and "shows the amount of work that still needs to happen to educate elected officials on the reality of the lives of people living with HIV."

Tom Price resigned from his post as head of Health and Human Services last month after a controversy over his use of expensive private jets on trips for government business.