Italian Challenges AIDS Rumors

VENICE, Italy — A baker in the town of Chioggia, south of Venice, has put up 200 posters to deny rumors that he has the disease AIDS.

Giordano Villan, 47, paid $270 to have the posters printed. They show a copy of a hospital test certifying that he does not have the disease.

He told journalists he had put up the posters because he was fed up with insinuations that he had acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Villan said the rumors began after he was seen frequently visiting the local hospital. The visits were to see his sick father, the baker said.

He added that when he recently went for a skiing holiday another rumor spread that he had gone away for treatment.

The yellow and white posters, measuring three feet by two feet, say AIDS has caused a “senseless bias in society.”

They add, “For the information of bad mouths and the incredulous, here is my test.”

An arrow points to a laboratory blood test result showing Villan does not have AIDS.

The poster ends with the words, “If you were better people and more altruistic, you would live better.”