More AIDS Testing Proposed

A new strategy to combat HIV/AIDS in the United States is needed, a Brooklyn doctor who serves on the President's Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS told a conference on the disease Friday. "Any policies you make, ask, 'Will it protect the virus or protect people?'" PACHA member Monica Sweeney told an audience of around 200 health care and service providers and advocates in Tarrytown. "Because in the past, our policies have protected the virus. We need to change that."

The conference, sponsored by the Westchester County Department of Health and the county AIDS Council, was charged with considering how to apply the gains made against HIV/AIDS over the last decade against emerging challenges, which include:

• The increase in cases among hard-to-reach minorities, including black and Latino communities where homosexuality and AIDS remain highly stigmatized, and immigrants from countries where ignorance about AIDS is widespread.
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• "AIDS fatigue" in the gay community and the growing belief that the disease can be cured by new medicines.

• The increase in crystal meth use in the gay community and the effects of its combination with erectile dysfunction drugs.

• The Internet, which experts blame for a recent spike in HIV cases among men who have sex with men.

PACHA recently issued a 90-page report that urges a complete rethinking of federal AIDS policies and spending. Among its 56 recommendations:

• Make HIV testing a routine part of primary care.

• End anonymous testing.

• Standardize state AIDS policies.

• Test all pregnant women for HIV.

• Create a federally funded, multimedia AIDS prevention campaign.

• Increase prevention in black and Latino communities.

• Give "careful consideration" to evidence that male circumcision reduces HIV transmission risk.

• Pressure drug companies to stop making misleading claims about their AIDS medicines.

• Focus international assistance on reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission.

• Halt the international human sex trade.

Back to other news for December 6, 2005