MAINE FIGHTS MOM'S DECISION TO DENY DRUGS TO SON WITH HIV

Health Care: The state says the boy needs the treatment and is trying to
take custody.

Newport,Maine-Haunted by the pain her daughter experienced before dying of
AIDS,Valerie Emerson is trying to spare her son the same fate by refusing
to let him have the medication doctors say will keep him alive.

Emerson, 27, believes the three-drug cocktail that has subdued the AIDS
virus in many patients will only hasten 4-year-old Nikolas' death rather
than prolong his life.

The state disagrees, and on Thursday it asked a judge to decide who will
get Nikolas: his mother or the Maine Department of Human Services.

"I'm doing what's right in my heart. That's all I can do," Emerson said
during a break in a 10-hour closed -door hearing before Judge Douglas Clapp.

The judge is expected to rule sometime next week.

Emerson, who is infected with HIV herself and has stopped taking medication
as well, passed the virus on to Nikolas at birth. She has two other
children who do not have the virus.

Her only daughter, Tia, died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1996 just before
her fourth birthday despite getting he drug AZT in combination with other
drugs.

The so-called AIDS cocktail has improved the health of many AIDS patients,
but Emerson believes the powerful drugs had the opposite effect on her
daughter, and she has some medical opinions on her side.

During Thursday's hearing, two scientists testified that AZT and other
powerful drugs will overwhelm Nikolan' immune system and kill him faster
than if he were left alone.

One of the witnesses was David Rasnick, a visiting scientist at the
University of California, Berkeley, who has even questioned whether AIDS is
caused by HIV.

But the state said it bases its opinion on the work of national experts and
doctors who have examined Nikolas.

"Not treating him is not an option," who is HIV-positive and has not seen
Nikolas in two years.

Nikolas' physician, Dr. Jean Benson, said the youngster has been thriving
since he was taken off AZT in March 1997. Benson described Nikolas as " a
happy, rambunctious little boy."

Checked-by: Pat Dolan