Word: tested
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Today the decision is up to Souleles. But as the AIDS toll continues to mount, a number of state and local politicians around the country are calling for widespread, mandatory AIDS antibody testing. These demands have spurred vigorous opposition from gay-rights activists, civil rights lawyers and public-health officials. They urge, instead, voluntary testing that includes what have been called the "three Cs": informed consent, confidentiality and counseling. This week both views will be represented in Atlanta as medical experts from across the nation gather for a conference sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control to debate the value...
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are already required by the Federal Government to submit to AIDS testing. By the end of this year, the military will have screened 3 million service members. Last month the State Department began testing its more than 8,000 Foreign Service personnel, and in March, the Labor Department plans to begin administering the test to some 60,000 young Job Corps applicants. A few states may be moving toward mandatory testing. Some examples: in Georgia, a committee of the legislature has approved a bill that proposes permitting the exchange of information regarding AIDS victims among...
Civil liberties lawyers are also concerned about the threat of discrimination based on compulsory-testing results. (For this reason, most voluntary AIDS tests offered today are done anonymously.) Once identified as a carrier of the AIDS virus, an individual runs the risk of losing friends, employment, housing and insurance. In New York City, 314 AIDS discrimination complaints were filed in 1986 alone. Says Nan Hunter, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union: "The antibody test is not like other medical blood tests. People don't lose their jobs because they have B-positive blood...
Another and more immediate reason mandatory testing will not work, according to many researchers, is that the results of the blood test most commonly administered can be misleading. A positive result on the ELISA (for enzyme- linked immunosorbent assay) screening test means that an individual has been exposed to the AIDS virus and has developed antibodies to it, not necessarily that a person has -- or will fall victim to -- the disease. Scientists assume, but have not proved, that those who test positive are still carrying the virus and can transmit it. Moreover, additional testing is needed to confirm a positive...
...annual cost of all this testing, including the ELISA, confirmation tests and counseling, would probably be counted in the billions. But the personal and emotional costs of testing are immeasurable. "The test tends to rip people's lives apart," says Dooley Worth, who leads a support group of high- risk women, many of them former intravenous drug users, in Manhattan. "I've even seen couples who are both negative break up because of questions raised from just getting the test." For those who test positive, the psychological effect is devastating. And critics of mass testing question the ethics of informing...