Posted on 05/09/2006 3:10:52 AM PDT by SkyPilot
ATLANTA (AP) - Testing for the AIDS virus could become part of routine physical exams for adults and teens if doctors follow new U.S. guidelines expected to be issued by this summer. Federal health officials say they'd like HIV testing to be as common as a cholesterol check.
The guidelines for voluntary testing would apply to every American ages 13 to 64, according to the proposed plan by the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention.
One-quarter of the 1 million Americans with the AIDS virus don't know they are infected, and that group is most responsible for HIV's spread, CDC officials said.
"We need to expand access to HIV testing dramatically by making it a routine part of medical care," said the agency's Dr. Kevin Fenton.
CDC officials first disclosed the plans at a scientific conference in February. Last week, they said the guidelines should be released in June or July.
The recommendations aren't legally binding, but they influence what doctors do and what health insurance programs cover.
Currently, the CDC recommends routine testing for those at high-risk for catching the virus, such as IV drug users and gay men, and for hospitals and certain other institutions serving areas where HIV is common.
Under the new guidelines, patients would be tested for HIV as part of a standard battery of tests they receive when they go for urgent or emergency care, or even during a routine physical.
Patients wouldn't get tested every year: Repeated, annual testing would only be recommended only for those at high-risk.
There would be no consent form specifically for the HIV test; it would be covered in a clinic or hospital's standard care consent form. Patients would be allowed to decline the testing.
Standardizing HIV testing should reduce the stigma as well as transmission, CDC officials said. Nearly half of new HIV infections are discovered when doctors are trying to diagnose an illness in a patient who has come for care, they noted.
The American Medical Association supports the proposed recommendations, said Dr. Nancy Nielsen, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based physician who is speaker of the AMA's House of Delegates.
Some doctor's offices will face challenges implementing the recommendations, she added. For example, they should not give a positive HIV test result over the phone and would have to provide or arrange for counseling.
But the benefits of reducing the spread of HIV far outweigh the logistical challenges, said Nielsen, an infectious disease specialist.
"I'm so happy the CDC is recommending this," she said. "HIV is an infectious disease and it should be treated like any other infectious disease. The fact that it has been treated so differently, I think, in some ways has contributed to the stigma."
Some patients' advocates have voiced concern that the recommendations do not include pre-test counseling and sufficient informed consent.
At many HIV testing sites, patients sit through a counseling session to explain the procedure before any blood is drawn. Many centers also require a patient to give "informed consent," indicating they understand the risks and benefits of the test.
The new recommendations, as currently drafted, do not require pre-test counseling. They call for post-test counseling to be offered only to patients who test positive.
CDC officials say they understand advocates' concerns, and are optimistic physicians will follow the recommendations carefully.
"Doctors should be explicit that 'You're going to be tested,'" said Dr. Tim Mastro, acting director of the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention.
They believe AIDS comes with its own set of political rights. It is a contagious disease, like TB, but we don't treat it as such.
I don't see adults and teens who are not sexually active wanting to shell out money for a test that does not pertain to them.
That would like testing a Euro-American for sickle cell anemia.
So, it is OK to drive up co-payments and premiums while patients are privately insured, but as soon as Medicare would be paying, AIDS testing is no longer important?
AIDS is a Virus?
Just watched a documentary on how Aids traveled through the Porn Industry a few years back.
Out of all those testing positive it was due to male and female anal sex.
Lotsa cases was double male in a female anal.
The one gal that tested negative out of the whole bunch did not have anal with the men.
The doctor for the porno performers was quite graphic on how many fissures and prolapses she had to sew up a week.
One porno female was actually almost in tears that if her rear entry got any worse from the damage it would end her career. If it wasn't so sad it would almost be funny.
I guess it is
Definition of Virus
Virus: A microorganism smaller than a bacteria, which cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell. A virus invades living cells and uses their chemical machinery to keep itself alive and to replicate itself. It may reproduce with fidelity or with errors (mutations)-this ability to mutate is responsible for the ability of some viruses to change slightly in each infected person, making treatment more difficult.
Viruses cause many common human infections, and are also responsible for a bevy of rare diseases. Examples of viral illnesses range from the common cold, which is usually caused by one of the rhinoviruses, to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Viruses may contain either DNA or RNA as their genetic material. Herpes simplex virus and the hepatitis- B virus are DNA viruses. RNA viruses have an enzyme called reverse transcriptase that permits the usual sequence of DNA-to-RNA to be reversed so the virus can make a DNA version of itself. RNA viruses include HIV and the hepatitis C virus.
Researchers have grouped viruses together into several major families, based on their shape, behavior, and other characteristics. These include the herpesviruses, adenoviruses, papovaviruses (papilloma viruses), hepadnaviruses, poxviruses, and parvoviruses among the DNA viruses. On the RNA virus side, major families include the picornaviruses (including the rhinoviruses), calciviruses, paramyxoviruses, orthomyxoviruses, rhabdoviruses, filoviruses, bornaviruses, and retroviruses. There are dozens of smaller virus families within these major classifications. Many viruses are host-specific, causing disease in humans or specific animals only.
The Dutch microbiologist Martinus Beijerinck (1851-1931) was the first person to use the term "virus" for the invisible disease-causing material that he showed to be self-replicating.
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5997
AIDS is a syndrome. HIV is a virus.
One-quarter of the 1 million Americans with the AIDS virus don't know they are infected...
So 250,000 people with AIDS are lost to followup? Or what?
More funding is needed.
I'm not sure I want to know what that means.
It is as creepy as you are trying not to imagine.
I have always believed that sex in the cesspool was the basis for Aids. JMO
NO KIDDING! They will freak out! I would love to post this on another political forum I frequent because it is full of militant homosexuals but I am boycotting at the moment.
This would give them a wedgie in their thongies.
How 'bout they require AID's testing before marriage?
Homosexual groups have LONG prohibited that life-saving measure.
Hmmmm. A very curious sentence. Are they trying to reduce the stigma of the test, or of the disease?
Interesting that the 'group is most responsible for HIV's spread' is NEVER mentioned!
and the CDC knows that...how?
... and that group is most responsible for HIV's spread, CDC officials said.
Name that group please.
FMCDH(BITS)
But why? After all, AIDS isn't just a gay disease... (/sarasm)
"They believe AIDS comes with its own set of political rights. It is a contagious disease, like TB, but we don't treat it as such."
What they are NOT telling you...
If you FOIA research from Aberdeen, you will learn that in some areas where the AIDS virus is found in epidemic proportions, the virus is found in people who ARE NOT engaging in what we in America have referred to as abnormal sexual behavior. That is, we maybe facing the spread of the virus that causes AIDS, in some areas in the future, in humans that do NOT engage in high risk behavior. The reason(s) we have not seen this reported is that the medical community still wishes to believe that this sort of spread is impossible, i.e. they maintain that the high risk behavior or conditions (sex, IV drug abuse, blood transfusions) are the only ways you can be infected with this virus. What they should be telling you is that, the virus is spread more quickly in these groups, but that in geographic areas where the virus is active within its host, the virus may be spread in ways that will result in humans getting infected even when they do not fall in these groups.
Conclusion: We need to check people for this Virus just like we would be checking for TB, FTA-tests, or other infectious diseases that we should be treating that could and will have a grave impact on our population if we do not.
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