The Food and Drug Administration, apparently acting in response to AIDS activist pressure, has issued a decision formally permitting untested AIDS "remedies" to enter the United States. Dr. Frank Young, commissioner of the FDA, stated that he did not want to be remembered as "the commissioner that robs (AIDS victims) of hope."

On the face of it, this would seem to be a compassionate and fair solution to a snowballing and, so far as we can see, insoluble problem of limited AIDS treatment availability. After all, what hope does the present AIDS sufferer have? The drug approval process is lengthy while the terminal course of the disease is quite short. Why not give these unfortunate AIDS sufferers any chance, proven or not, at prolonged life? There has been for some time tacit approval of the practice, as AIDS patients were allowed to hand-carry a small supply of "medications" into the country, so why not formalize the process to include mailing of these substances into the United States for "personal use"?