U.S. News Massachusetts: Advocates Critique New HIV Testing GuidelinesOctober 2, 2006 On Sept. 21, CDC announced revised recommendations that call for providers to offer voluntary HIV testing to all patients ages 13-64 in health care settings. CDC also suggested doing away with special written consent currently required for HIV testing to make the procedure more routine and less stigmatized. In a telephone press briefing, CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said the new recommendations are designed to remove some of the barriers that prevent people from getting tested. Steven Boswell, president of Fenway Community Health, lauds the new approach by CDC. "From the standpoint of concerns, my overall sense about this is it is a reasonable next step," he said. "We have been stalled here with hundreds of thousands of people who are HIV-positive and don't know it for quite some time, and we have been unable to tap that group." Though Boswell believes making HIV testing a routine aspect of health care will help reduce stigma, he worries about eliminating written informed consent. Patients must be made aware of the health and legal consequences of testing before they agree, he said. "If you just throw HIV consent information into that group of papers people are signing, I am truly concerned about whether that is informed consent," he added. ![]() New York State Law Prevents New CDC Testing Recommendations From Being Implemented, New York Times Reports This article was provided by CDC National Prevention Information Network. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update.
|