REFEREE Mills Lane, who officiated the fight between Tommy Morrison and Britain's Lennox Lewis, has taken an AIDS test in the wake of revelations that the American fighter had tested positive for the HIV virus.
Lane was the third man in the ring in Morrison's October 7th defeat by Lewis in Atlantic City, in which he was cut around both eyes in the second round and bled much of the way before the fight was finally stopped.
The referee, a state judge in Reno who has officiated 78 title fights, was told by his doctor that there was only an infinitesimal chance he could have got the virus, but he wanted to take the test to make sure. "I'm not really worried, but it will make me feel better to know for sure," Lane said.
Meanwhile, medical experts say that the risk factor is so small that no studies have been made. No case of HIV transmission through sports has been confirmed.
"We're talking about a very, very unlikely situation. The chances are so remote you can't even measure them," said Anthony Fauci, an American National Institutes of health physician. Fauci said boxers have much more chance of brain damage, inflicted by an opponent, than HIV infection, even considering the possibility that blood could splatter into an opponent's eyes or mouth.
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