Huckabee stands by AIDS statement Katie Baker

Published: Sunday December 9, 2007



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Print This Email This GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday that he stands by the statement he made 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated. "I didn't say that we should quarantine," Huckabee said in an interview with Fox News, "I simply made the point, and I still believe this today, that in the late '80s and early '90's, when we didn't know as much as we do now about AIDS, we were acting more out of political correctness than ... normal health protocols." When, Chris Wallace reminded Huckabee that The Centers for Disease Control announced that AIDS could not be spread by casual contact seven years before Huckabee made the statement, Huckabee referred to the case of Kimberly Bergalis, who claimed to contract AIDS from her dentist. Huckabee admitted that he would "probably" word things differently today, but said that he would not retract his original statement. "The point was not saying we ought to lock people up who have HIV/AIDS," he said, adding that friends of his have died from the disease, one who was a homosexual. "Sure, in light of 15 years of additional knowledge and understanding I would [say the statement differently]," said Huckabee. "But what I'm not going to do is go back and now try to change every story I've ever had." Huckabee failed to address other past issues that Wallace raised, such as the fact that he opposed increased federal funding to find a cure for AIDS, and that he called homosexuality a "sinful lifestyle that posed a dangerous health risk." source: Federal News Service



