British Nobles’ Most-Eligible List Drops AIDS Victims

LONDON —  The publishers of Burke’s Peerage, the prestigious directory of the British nobility, is excluding the names of AIDS sufferers and their close relatives from its list of eligible marriage partners.

“We are worried that AIDS may not be a simple infection, even if conveyed in unusual ways, but an indication of a genetic defect,” publishing director Harold Brooks-Baker said over the weekend.

“It could be that some people, because of their genetic makeup, are more likely to get it than others . . . . We are not taking any chances.”

Brooks-Baker said the directory’s “Blood and Gold” Club, a marriage guide based on noble birth or wealth, would also exclude affected families because of “the ignoble way” in which the disease was spread.

Fifty-five people in England have died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which destroys the body’s defenses against disease and is spread through sexual contact--in the West, usually through homosexual activity--and blood transfusions.