Lobotomies Revealed

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Why don't newspaper reporters do their homework when they report on Dr. Vernon Mark's suggestions about involking 18th century laws to track down possible carriers of the AIDS virus and confining people who are found to have the virus to the former leper colonies on Penikese Island off Cape Cod? The Boston Globe identified him only as a Harvard professor and so did The Crimson. More relevant than his Harvard affiliation, perhaps, is the fact that in the early 1970's Dr. Mark proposed mandatory psychosurgery (lobotomy) for Blacks who participated in ghetto riots or who were incarcerated for violent crimes. And he almost got to test this scheme at Vaccaville prison in California when the project was stopped as a result of extensive protest. Ruth Hubbard   Professor of Biology