18 Years Too Late the CDC Gets It
I wonder how many thousand lives have been lost because the Centers for Disease Control has waited 18 years to follow the recommendations of President Ronald Reagan’s AIDS/HIV Commission. 
That's almost two decades of lost opportunity to inform those with the disease of their HIV-infected and HIV-infectuous status!
Yesterday, the CDC, which I think could be more appropriately be called the Centers for the Spread of Disease, recommended routine testing for HIV for those from ages 13-64.
When Penny Pullen was negotiating the recommendations in the commission report from the public protection side of the issue, she got unanimous approval for routine testing. (I assisted her when she served on the commission.)
How shameful that the CDC delayed almost two decades to implement that sensible recommendation.
I see in the Friday page 3 Chicago Tribune article that Illinois folks who are not on the public protection side of this issue still don't get it:
"What they really want is not so much routine testing as what I call stealth testing," (Executive Director of the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago Ann) Fisher said.It seems some are still stuck in the age that considered AIDS/HIV a politically protected virus, rather than a disease that needs to be treated like any other.
More at McHenry County Blog, including the state of the GOP, as found in an $18,000 McHenry County poll.
2 comments:
I think you are wrong, Cal. Conventional wisdom (both now, and back in the day) was that Reagan was the cause of AIDS. He didn't speak out on until very late.
Don't try to pin the blame on the faceless bureaucracy. We need a bad guy to blame this mess on, and Reagan has been the generally accpeted target for 20+ years. There is no reason to try to change that now.
CDC = good
Reagan = bad
You have to remember that in the 1980s, AIDS was primarily associated with gay men. The stigma of being gay was much, much higher in those days. Moreover, medical privacy was not nearly as well protected.
Today, HIPAA has improved the confidentiality of medical records. And the public is far more tolerant of gays. Most importantly, AIDS is no longer just a "gay plague." (The most interesting part of the article in the Trib is the finding at Stroger Hospital that half of those who tested positive under routine screening were not in a high risk group.)
Anyhow, it seems to me that greater acceptance and tolerance of gays and lesbians must go hand-in-hand with any sort of routine screening for HIV. It's rather unfortunate that Cal Skinner and Penny Pullen -- who claim to be for "public protection" -- spent a large chunk of their public careers trying to stigmatize gays and lesbians (by, e.g., opposing hate crimes legislation that covers sexual orientation; opposing including sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act; opposing allowing gays and lesbians to marry).
On a slightly different note: let's put Ann Fisher's quote in context. If you read the article, it is clear that Fisher was talking about the CDC recommendation to basically do away with Illinois' requirement that a patient provide informed consent before an HIV test. Thus, a doctor (or an insurance company, etc.) would not have to specifically tell a patient that the blood sample that is being drawn would be run for HIV. To me, it sounds like Fisher's criticism is exactly right: this would lead to stealth testing.
Fisher did not criticize the public health conclusion that people -- regardless of risk factor -- should routinely get HIV screenings.
Post a Comment