State denies HIV woman in brothel

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- John Reese, a long-time foe of legal prostitution in Nevada, said he spent $350 last week at a nearby brothel -- not to have sex -- but to gather information about possible AIDS-infected women working in the industry.

Reese said he paid the money to a prostitute at the Sagebrush Brothel in Lyon County, who in return told him there was a woman who had worked at the bordello who had tested HIV positive.

Reese and two others Monday demonstrated outside offices of the State Health Division. They protested that they can't get information from the division about women who may have AIDS yet work in the legal brothels in rural Nevada.

The Health Division's Bob Nellis, however, said he personally checked out the Sagebrush claim made by Reese, talked to the woman and found the charge was inaccurate.

Nellis said Reese has made numerous claims in the last several years but none of them have been true.

"This hurts his credibility," Nellis said, adding, however, that the division will continue to investigate when there are charges of this nature.

Nellis said that since 1986, the 33,000 to 38,000 HIV tests done on Nevadans have uncovered no one working in a legal brothel who has tested positive. Tests are conducted before a woman can go to work and then there are monthly examinations for AIDS, Nellis said.

He said there has never been a case of where a woman who was cleared to work in the brothel later tested positive.

Reese said the Sagebrush prostitute refused to give a name but nevertheless said one of her colleagues had tested positive.

"I don't know if she was telling the truth or not," Reese said.

Reese and his fellow demonstrators handed out leaflets stating: "The Nevada Bureau of Disease Control refuses to warn client and citizen alike of this brothel HIV."

But Nellis said if and when a prostitute in a legal brothel tests positive for AIDS, the public will be alerted. In this case, he said, "Everybody's medical records are clean."