I’ve been tested, have you?
In a new report, a U.S. panel is advising that HIV tests for all people ages 15-64 become part of routine medical care. If the recommendations are adopted, more people will have their HIV tests covered by Medicare and private insurance, as it will be required coverage.
The LA Times explains:
The recommendations, which would apply to all but very-low-risk populations, are a clear shift toward broader testing for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The task force’s 2005 guidelines suggested routine HIV screening only for adolescents and adults at increased risk, including men who have sex with men, injection drug users, people who trade sex for drugs and those who have multiple sexual partners.
…
A landmark clinical trial last year involving 1,763 couples, most of them heterosexual, showed that when HIV-positive partners were treated early with antiretroviral medications, transmission of the virus to uninfected partners was reduced by 96%.
The 15-to-64 age range was suggested for such tests — which could be offered to patients visiting their doctors or hospitals for any reason — because government health statistics show this would capture the majority of Americans who contract the virus every year, Owens said.
Still, he added, ‘We want to emphasize that the best way to reduce HIV-related disease and death is to avoid getting infected in the first place.'”
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What do you think? Should HIV testing become routine? How about mandatory coverage by most (if not all) health insurance plans?
For now, free HIV testing is available, should you need it. Testing is easy, safe and confidential—and isn’t it better to know?
Find FREE HIV TESTING sites here, via the CDC.
Image courtesy of Flickr/Neeta Lind
Yes, I would say it (HIV) should be routine.
However, why not make testing for STDs and STIs routine, especially genital herpes?
The problem is many of these carriers are small in number but are infecting many people.
I keep reading this piece and I keep coming back to just one word that has a real connection to jerky knees. “Routine”. On it’s own it’s rational, sensible and oh so positive. But link it to HIV and AIDS and I’m sorry, but all that Good Rational Stuff has to be judged against a landscape of routine prejudice that simply will not die. Why is it that Routine is good – and when you turn that into Routine HIV Testing it’s just a massive sling shot and it all goes out the window at such high speed? I have… Read more »
Yes.
Yes testing should become routine.
HIV-AIDS patients cost a lot of money to Insurance carriers, whether private or public & Anything that may focus attention on prevention of it’s spread can’t hurt.
There was a lot of argument back in the day about why the same standards for reporting of HIV as a STD were not adhered to.
For many, not all, HIV is a disease of opportunity just as are cancers related to smoking and dietary caused diabetics own a certain part of their problems- for which we all pay.
Is where does HIV rank in public health problems? More people in the US die from acetaminophen over doses. Mandatory testing for Tylenol anyone? There’s also the issue of privacy which tends to go out the window with such policies.
I do think testing should be better promoted, along with education.
Oh, I don’t know, how about YES!? Let’s get over the squeamishness and be done with it already!!!
Collin. Did you escape the, iirc, Ryan White plague or did you come along later?
I’ve been getting tested for a very long time. It was a concern growing up as a hemophiliac along with hepatitis. Really though, I don’t see any downside to having a full screening every time I go to the doctor. Better to be too thorough than not thorough enough. It’s why I get checked for all sorts of cancer too.
By routine, do you mean mandatory?
If it’s free, what’s stopping people?
I helped out at an accident years ago and a state cop said I ought to get tested for hepatitis and AIDS and whatnot. He does, twice yearly, I paid for two, six months apart, before I found out the health department would do it for free.
Interesting that things which amount to a pinch of practically nothing in a person’s entertainment budget has to be “free” or they won’t do it.