AIDS DISCRIMINATION

How ironic that in referring to “undemocratic discrimination” against people with AIDS, Pratapaditya Pal (reviewing Florence King’s “Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye,” Book Review, April 30) should use the outrageous and offensive modifier “even the unwitting ones.”

The insidious suggestion that some people with AIDS somehow deserve to suffer this disease is appallingly insensitive. It is especially shocking that such a suggestion should appear in the pages of an otherwise sophisticated publication like The Times’ Book Review.

RICHARD JENNINGS

LOS ANGELES