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| Science & Technology |
| Government Out Of Control: CDC Mulling Plan To Test Everybody For HIV |
| 2006-07-12 |
| As an HIV prevention counselor, Sharlene Miles knows a thing or two about slowing the spread of HIV and AIDS. Still, she was one of hundreds of Washington, D.C., residents waiting in line recently to get a free rapid HIV test. The attendees were there to help kick off Washington's new push to encourage doctors to routinely screen everyone between the ages of 14 and 84 for the virus that causes AIDS. Her test came back negative, and Miles wasn't surprised. She said she doesn't practice any of the behaviors that put people most at risk. However, she did say knowing your status — whether you are HIV positive or negative — is important. Along with Washington's new screening program, the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to release similar guidelines this summer that would expand HIV screening to all adults in the United States If this happens, it means that just about anybody over the age of 13 could be asked by their doctor, "Would you like an HIV test?" In Washington, which has one of the highest rates of new AIDS cases in the country, the capital's department of health has encouraged primary care providers, community health clinics and emergency departments to routinely screen patients for HIV. It is the first location to do so, according to Dr. Gregg Pane, the department's director. 'Almost Criminal' to Not Test But there's benefits to a nationwide program too, experts said. At least 25 percent of Americans infected with HIV are unaware of their status, according to the CDC. Unlike the early days of the virus in the 1980s, HIV testing is today more accurate, and the disease itself can be treated as a chronic disease, meaning people can live a normal life span, said Dr. Michael Saag, the director of the University of Alabama's Center for AIDS Research in Birmingham. "Today, in my mind, it would be almost criminal to not test more widely for HIV. … The reason people are dying today [from HIV/AIDS] is that they are diagnosed late. The best thing we can do is increase the amount of screening," said Saag, who explained that patients who are diagnosed early have stronger immune systems and the possibility of living longer, healthier lives compared with patients diagnosed late... No, what's criminal is wasting vital health care money on a useless publicity stunt when there is a major epidemic around the corner, that we are woefully unprepared for. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #3 well said, CW. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-07-12 21:04 |
| #2 Twenty years too late, care of the gay advocates of the 80s who successfully fought against doing this back then. When it could have been useful to id and isolate carriers, just like the old TB cases and other similar diseases. Meanwhile the advocates only succeeded in killing hundreds of thousands of those whom they claimed the represented by blocking this step. Now the much heralded hetero pan-epidemic, as touted by such renowned journals as Time and Newsweek, never materialized in the US, they want to bring this back. Hey, guys, the puritanical behavioral inheritance of the culture somehow has greatly assisted in reducing the effect of the retrovirus which runs rampant elsewhere in the world. Behavior as a means to combat disease and illness, what a concept. 'Almost Criminal' to Not Test Why not go back through the records and indeed publicly flog those, if they're still alive, and their enablers [MSM] for the obstruction twenty years ago. Because, today, we can 'Blame Bush'[tm]. |
| Posted by: Chereper Whush1804 2006-07-12 16:42 |
| #1 "Today, in my mind, it would be almost criminal to not test more widely for HIV. Â… The reason people are dying today [from HIV/AIDS] is that they are diagnosed late." Oh barf! The reason people (care to state which people in particular, hmm?) are dying from HIV/AIDS has nothing to do with inadequate testing and a hell of a lot more to do with recklessly dangerous drug use, prison sex, promiscuous sex, and overall poor health habits (again, drug use). |
| Posted by: Lancasters Over Dresden 2006-07-12 16:29 |