New Jersey has instituted programs to educate, track the spread of AIDS, and to conduct AIDS testing. Beginning in 1985 when State funds were earmarked especially for AIDS, New Jersey experience immediate success in implementing programs to achieve these goals. The U.S. Public Health Service's response to the AIDS crisis, on the other hand, indicates that the public health system is more susceptible to politics than to science. The initial effect of associating AIDS with homosexuals influenced the public health system to exercise less effort than it had in the past when a new disease threatened to infect the Nation. Also, the politics of scientific research slowed investigation and research into the AIDS crisis, but of all the mistakes committed by public health leadership, the most damaging was the failure to protect the blood supply. For the most part, the public health system failed to recognize the severity of the AIDS threat and to overcome the clamor of competing interests to accomplish the mission of public health, i.e., to promote the well being of the population. 42 footnotes.