Today is the eighth annual National HIV testing day

KBTX ^

[chance33_98]

06/27/2002
HIV Testing 

Today is the eighth annual National HIV testing day. It's estimated 280,000 Americans are infected with HIV and do not know it. Doctors say everyone is at risk and should be tested as early diagnosis is critical. Free, anonymous AIDS testing is available today at the AIDS Services office on Texas Avenue, as well as at the Brazos County Health Department, the Health for All Clinic and the Beutel Health Center on the Texas A&M campus.

[chance33_98]

Not sure what to say about this...

[Dimensio]

I usually get tested when I have routine bloodwork done (which is typically once or twice a year). I don't engage in high-risk behaviour, but I figure that they might as well be thorough.

I don't really see a need to set aside a special day for it.

[chance33_98]

It's estimated 280,000 Americans are infected with HIV and do not know it.

The above sentence warrants some sort of scrunity - I just love the way reporters just drop tidbits like this out there. How about I re-word it for them: 'some study guessed that there are lots of people who don't know whether or not they have HIV because they have never been tested'

[Paleo Conservative]

Beutel Health Center

Translation: Quack Shack

Doctors say everyone is at risk

Translation: It is not politically correct to point out that some identifiable groups are orders of magnitude more likely to be infected than others.

[Dimensio]

Well "everyone is at risk" is technically accurate, because it doesn't actually state that everyone is equally at risk. Everyone is at risk because there's still a chance that anyone could be involved in a freak accident that leads to exposure to infected blood.

[yendu bwam]

One of the biggest impediments to slowing AIDs transmission has been the refusal of gay activist organizations to allow laws requiring effective notification of sexual partners (when known). Nothing the gay activists have fought for has been so destructive (though some other things have come close).

[DoughtyOne]

 
the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare

[Britton J Wingfield]

I get tested at least yearly by the Navy. They usually the results or sample at least once, so I get tested more than I normally would.

[pabianice]

Gee... we monogamous, non-IV drug users feel left out...

[laredo44]

Doctors say everyone is at risk and should be tested as early diagnosis is critical.

That's a lie (unless this numbnut is saying he found two MDs making the recommendaiton). Why doesn't the FCC make an effort to keep this lying hysteria off the air? The station should have their license yanked.

[Billthedrill]

Doctors say everyone is at risk...

Well, not really. As a non-drug-user whose sex life makes a 90-year-old Tibetan monk look like a three-balled tomcat on Saturday night, I think I'm pretty safe, at least insofar as HIV infection is concerned. All the testing in the world isn't going to catch the infection I might get in the future when I get a bad transfusion, start shooting smack and hanging out in Castro street bath-houses...

[Dimensio]

As a non-drug-user whose sex life makes a 90-year-old Tibetan monk look like a three-balled tomcat on Saturday night, I think I'm pretty safe, at least insofar as HIV infection is concerned

Never discount the incredibly remote but real possibility that you will beinvolved in some freak accident involving a promiscious heroin addict and their dirty needle.

[Billthedrill]

True, but HIV testing now won't help me then. I'm not dropping the soap in any San Francisco showers, either...