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Guttorm Brattebø, MD; Nina Øyen, MD, MPH
Hammerfest Hospital Norway

Torben Wisborg, MD, DEAA
University of Bergen Haukeland Hospital Norway

JAMA. 1989;262(19):2679-2680.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor. —

The article of Gerbert and colleagues¹ discussing the problem of health care workers and fear of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome in the December 16, 1988 issue of JAMA deserves some comments.

The authors doubt that latex gloves are effective in preventing transmission of blood-borne infections, and they claim that accidents in infection control receive little attention. This is not correct. Numerous articles^2,3 have been published regarding the value of double gloving in surgery, and it seems that this practice can significantly reduce accidental blood contact during surgical procedures.

As far as we know, few health care workers have become infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) during surgery, and the volume of publications on the HIV risk of health care workers is large. The risk for seroconversion after accidents is in fact emphasized rather than ignored; indeed, the Centers for Disease Control regularly publishes information on this . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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