THUMBS-UP FROM DOCTORS

The starched white coats caused a chuckle and the bedside manner of the doctors seemed “heavy-handed,” but Dr. Paul Volberding of San Francisco General Hospital and other AIDS experts gave a thumbs-up Friday night to NBC’s television movie about a homosexual who is dying of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

“We have seen examples of all the behaviors shown in the movie,” Volberding said of “An Early Frost,” which airs tonight at 9 on Channels 4, 36 and 39.

“The film deals realistically with some very serious issues,” agreed Dr. Shirley Fannin of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department.

“The movie will motivate people to overcome their own anxieties about AIDS and get the information to make rational decisions,” said Sally Jue, a social worker for the AIDS Project Los Angeles.

In a curious juxtaposition of the medical community and the film industry, Volberding, Fannin and Jue commented on the movie and answered questions about the disease following a special screening in Beverly Hills for the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. The film is the first network movie about AIDS and one of the first television dramas on the subject.

“Frost” provides basic information about AIDS and its invariably fatal course, but it concentrates on the personal tragedies and human dimensions of the illness. A middle-aged couple (Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands) must cope with the twin disclosures that their lawyer son Michael (Aidan Quinn) is gay and has AIDS.

The movie dramatizes the conflicting feelings of hope and despair that patients with AIDS often experience simultaneously. “Frost” also spotlights schisms and reconciliations between Michael, his lover Peter (D. W. Moffett), and his pregnant sister Susan (Sydney Walsh).

“The film shows that the emotional impact of the disease is just as devastating for people with AIDS and those who care about them as the disease itself,” Jue said.

Particularly poignant and realistic, according to Volberding, is the friendship that develops in the hospital between Michael and another patient with AIDS (John Glover), who battles his illness with humor and a steadfast will to live.

After Michael suffers a seizure and loses consciousness at his parents’ house, an ambulance is summoned. The crew learns that Michael has AIDS, refuses to transport him and leaves.

“My concern is that the viewer will think that scene was made up,” said Volberding, who reviewed the script before production. “It’s not. This has happened in San Francisco, where we pride ourselves as a model for the care of patients with AIDS.”

Jue described a situation in Los Angeles where an ambulance crew refused to touch an emaciated and confused young man “who was clearly dying of AIDS.”

“He had to try and climb onto the stretcher himself,” she said. “He fell and hit his head. He died the next day.”

Questions from the audience of close to 2,000 focused on the risks of transmission of the disease and potential therapies. The atmosphere was subdued, and many people left early.

Volberding said the Screen Actors Guild decision last month to require actors to be told in advance whether they will be asked to play “open-mouth” kissing scenes was “not a bad policy.” Scientists have found the AIDS virus in saliva but do not think the virus is spread readily through saliva.

Volberding said sharing coffee cups or cigarettes and social kissing had “no risk whatsoever” of spreading the disease, but added, “All of us would share some anxiety about prolonged intimate kissing with someone known to be positive for antibodies to the AIDS virus.”

“I’m not from the industry, but I always thought actors and actresses could act,” Fannin quipped. “Isn’t there a way to fake it (kissing)?”

There was a contrast between the search for certainty inherent in many of the questions and the answers from the panel, which were often couched with probabilities and qualifications. “It would be very easy to be dogmatic and say the AIDS virus is not transmitted by kissing,” Volberding said. “But the risk of being wrong downstream is to contribute to the spread of the disease.”

The physician explained that the “experts had gone through the same fears as the public with the disease,” including the “fear and guilt we would catch it and take it home to our families.”

Volberding said because the test for antibodies to the AIDS virus was “one of the most accurate” of all the tests used in medicine, a negative test could be tremendously reassuring. Patients with antibodies to the virus are considered to be carriers of the virus. They may or may not actually develop AIDS or related diseases, but may transmit the virus to others.

Since the time from possible exposure to the AIDS virus to the development of a positive test appears to be only one or two months, an individual who tests negative after that time “can relax,” he said.

Volberding said he became convinced in 1983, before the blood test was generally available, that he had become infected with the AIDS virus. “I was incredibly anxious when the blood was drawn and incredibly relieved when the test was negative.”

NBC has mounted an extensive publicity and public service campaign in connection with “Frost.” Following the broadcast, at 11:30 p.m., NBC News will present a half-hour special report, “AIDS Fear/AIDS Fact,” with Tom Brokaw as host.

UPDATE ON AIDS

Following the broadcast of “An Early Frost” tonight, NBC will air a half-hour special produced by its news division to provide up-to-date information on what is known about acquired immune deficiency syndrome and what can be done to avoid getting it.

Tom Brokaw will anchor “AIDS Fear/AIDS Fact” at 11:30 p.m. (Channels 4, 36 and 39). Among the medical experts who will appear are Dr. Paul Volberding, director of AIDS activities at San Francisco General Hospital, and Dr. William Haseltine of Harvard University.