A Georgia state representative wants to know if AIDS victims can legally be quarantined to stop the spread of the disease.

Betty Price, a doctor married to former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, asked her controversial question during a recent meeting of a state committee studying the spread of HIV through the state, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

“I don’t want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it,” said Price, a Republican, on Friday. “ . . . I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in … treatment of this condition. So we have a public interest in curtailing the spread.’’

She later told the newspaper her comments were “taken completely out of context’’ and she was merely being “provocative.’’

Jeff Graham, the director of a local LGBT advocacy group, described her question as “troubling.’’

Price’s husband resigned from his cabinet post after a scandal over his use of private planes.