SEN. JESSE HELMS, the nation's leading apostle of ignorance, has been on a reactionary tear lately. Riding a wave of national AIDS hysteria, the North Carolina Republican has pushed through the Senate a measure that would imprison infected health-care workers who keep their status a secret. He has also won Senate approval of a bill that would let medical workers test patients for HIV (the AIDS virus) without their knowledge. And he has played a leading role in the government's mean-spirited ban on visits to this country by infected foreigners.

The whole corrosive frenzy could wind up costing New York's health-care system dearly. More AIDS patients live in New York City than in any other place in the country. If doctors are forced to abandon their practices immediately in the unlikely event they contract HIV from a patient, how many new ones will accept residencies at city hospitals? How many older ones will treat AIDS patients privately? And how many doctors who have other options will work in the poorer parts of Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan, where infection rates are off the charts?