Here's a link to a NY Times article that contains more information about the recommendation: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/h...&en=1cb8ad4909b01b0f&ei=5094&partner=homepage Apparently some (many?) states have laws that may discourage testing, and they want the states to change that. Some AIDS activists oppose the recommendations. The CDC says 50% to 70% of people who have HIV don't know it, and if they did know, they would take steps to protect their partners. They could also get on medication to forestall the development into full-blown AIDS.
I heard a rather cynical reason yesterday for not encouraging the test, it is that all the money for drugs has got to come from somewhere and they assume it will be the tax payers. Also there is quite a bit of work involved in putting the infrastructure in place to deal with all this testing. I am doing some work with one of the states that draw blood from newborn infants and perform a battery of test for health issues. Everything from having the equipment to setting up delivery of the samples for 200 to 700 samples a day.
I feel that HIV testing should be done whenever someone is hospitalized or if they give blood for a donation or for other testing purposes. The more you know the more you can do about it. I have had a bunch of blood tests over the years for various things and always thought that the HIV test was an automatic - even when I had Kiddo, but it is not. You have to request it and even then many doctors will reccommend you go to social services because the test is expensive and insurance does not cover it. UNless the are symptoms and resonable suspicion that someone may have it. How do I know? When I found out my now EX-husband cheated I all but ran to the doctors and requested every STD and other tests they had. I am not embarrassed to say that my health was a paramount worry. They did everything but the HIV test - for that I had to go to social services twice - since they recommend you get it repeated in six months. THat was a while ago, and the embarassment and feelings of humiliation were terrible. BUT the woman who worked there told me I was a smart cookie - not every cheated on spouse thinks about stuff like HIV and many find out way too late. I was lucky, I didn't catch a thing from my ex, but many spouses aren't so lucky. For me it was piece of mind and a divorce.
Women HAVE to protect themselves from men! If we (women) don't take care of our bodies (in your case she should have made him wear his "rubbers") nobody else will. :wink:
THe way they told them in school was not only are you sleeping with that one person... but every other person that person has been with. think about it .. yuck.
Any blood/plasma donated/purchased for transfusion or for the production of pharmaceuticals is tested for HIV (and several other diseases too). In positive cases for pharmaceuticals, the person who is the source of the tainted blood/plasma is recorded in a national database so that his/her blood/plasma will not be inadvertantly used in the future. I don't know if there is any centralized or national database for blood donations, but I would suspect there is.
