In preparation for National HIV Testing Day, tomorrow, June 27, Lambda Legal, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and the Center for HIV Law and Policy release fundamental principles for testing policy and program expansion.
(New York, June 26, 2007) — Today, Lambda Legal, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and the Center for HIV Law and Policy launched a broadly-endorsed set of fundamental principles for HIV testing in honor of National HIV Testing Day, which is tomorrow, June 27.
Legal, medical, and service providers created a single set of principles that should guide HIV testing programs, emphasizing the fundamental principles that HIV testing must always be informed, voluntary, confidential, and supported by health care.
“We cannot lose sight of the people who will be tested,” said Bebe J. Anderson, HIV Project Director of Lambda Legal. “Respect for the civil and human rights of patients must be at the heart of successful efforts to increase testing.”
“Expanded testing can be valuable, but it must be well planned, high quality, and client centered,” said David Ernesto Munar, Vice President of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. “As a Colombian-American living with HIV, I know only too well that testing is about much more than just the results and must include meaningful coordination with prevention, care, and support services, especially for those who receive an HIV diagnosis.”
“The evidence that thousands of diagnosed HIV-positive people are not in care and that about half of new infections unknowingly stem from newly-infected people that rapid testing can’t pick up, are strong indictments of the CDC’s push to speed-test everyone for HIV without counseling or ensuring people get into care,” said Catherine Hanssens, Executive Director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy.
On June 27, the annual National HIV Testing Day, millions of people across the United States are encouraged to get tested for HIV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended that everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 get tested for HIV when they seek health care. In response to CDC’s push for expanded testing, Lambda Legal, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, the Center for HIV Law and Policy, and colleague organizations are issuing fundamental principles to direct the implementation of expanded voluntary testing for HIV.
The 15 guiding principles include:
-People living with undiagnosed HIV infection must be reached and offered testing.
-Any HIV testing program must provide the highest standard of care.
-Everyone offered testing must be educated about HIV and the significance of positive and negative test results.
-People who test positive for HIV antibodies must be linked to care. -Patients’ human rights and informed consent are consistent with, and not opposed to, the goal of expanded HIV testing. -Expanded HIV testing must be tailored to different clinical settings, populations, and patient needs.
-Clinicians, medical directors and other providers must receive training and education in making appropriate service referrals and linkages to care.
-Special attention must be paid to the prevention and care needs of at-risk populations.
The guiding principles and list of endorsing organizations will be used to inform public officials and HIV advocates as they work to expand voluntary HIV testing programs and policy at the local, state, and federal levels of government. To date, the guiding principles have been endorsed by: Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC); AIDS Foundation of Chicago; AIDS Legal Council of Chicago; the Center for HIV Law and Policy; Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP); Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, Inc. (GLAD), the Health and Education Alternative for Teens (HEAT) and Family, Adolescent, and Children Experiences at SUNY (FACES) programs of SUNY Downstate Medical Center, HIV/AIDS Legal Services Alliance (HALSA); Hudson Pride; Human Rights Watch, the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, Lambda Legal; Sisterhood Mobilized for AIDS/HIV Research & Treatment, Inc. (SMART), and Joseph Sonnabend, M.D.
For the full report, please visit www.lambdalegal.org. The report is also available at www.aidschicago.org and www.hivlawandpolicy.org.
New book explores HIV 'crimes'
ReplyDeletehttp://uk.gay.com/headlines/11446
GAY.COM/PlanetOut.com Network
Wednesday 25 April, 2007
A ground-breaking new medico-legal book on the criminal transmission of HIV has been published by NAM, the HIV information charity. 'Criminal HIV Transmission' contains all the medical, clinical, social, epidemiological and forensic science of HIV transmission as it relates to criminal law, written in clear, layperson's language.
In recent years there have been numerous criminal investigations, and a growing number of convictions, for "reckless" transmission of HIV, the implications of which have created considerable anxiety amongst people living with HIV, and many of the professionals who work with them.
The dramatic evolution of HIV treatments, as well as the stigma associated with the virus, has led to a great deal of misunderstanding about life with HIV, how and why the virus continues to be transmitted, how HIV transmission can be 'proven', and other important issues that relate to criminal HIV transmission.
This new book, aimed at individuals who work within, or who are in contact with, the criminal justice system, attempts to correct this misinformation by providing, according to South African Supreme Court Justice, Edwin Cameron, "a meticulous overview of HIV-related medical and social science, and law."
'Criminal HIV Transmission' was written and edited by AIDS Treatment Update editor, Edwin J Bernard - who also recently co-authored a NAM/National AIDS Trust briefing paper on HIV Forensics. It contains a preface by Justice Cameron, who writes:
"I am pleased and proud to be writing the preface to this book. It contains a tight, lucid, well-written and disciplined exposition of the medical, scientific and social facts about HIV and AIDS."
The 100 page book is divided into four chapters:
'HIV in context' provides basic information on transmission, testing, treatment, prognosis and life expectancy. It also provides background information on life with HIV in 2007; the communities most affected by HIV in the UK; and compares and contrasts HIV with other blood-borne and/or sexually transmitted infections, including viral hepatitis.
'HIV and behaviour' elucidates further the social context of HIV transmission by providing the reader with a working knowledge of how individuals, at-risk communities and society as a whole are informed about, interpret, and act upon sexual HIV risk-taking. This chapter explains how HIV-related stigma and discrimination - both actual and perceived - affect the acquisition and sharing of information about HIV on an individual, community and societal level. It also shows how and why the terms 'safer sex' and 'disclosure' can take many forms and mean different things to different people.
'Sexual HIV transmission' provides a detailed overview of how HIV can be transmitted sexually, and what factors increase or decrease the likelihood of transmission. In addition, the latest information on the risks of different types of sexual intercourse, condoms, HIV viral load, circumcision, and other probable or possible factors is summarised. The chapter also explains the difference between HIV exposure and HIV transmission and points out the very real difficulties of knowing when a person may have exposed someone to HIV, and when a person has been infected with HIV.
The final chapter, 'HIV forensics', explains how evidence can be used to prove or disprove the fact, timing and direction of sexual HIV transmission. In particular, it shows how and why individual elements of the scientific evidence collected during a criminal investigation should only be seen as small pieces of a much larger puzzle. The chapter covers virological evidence - notably phylogenetic analysis, a complex scientific process that estimates how closely two or more HIV strains are genetically related - as well as other aspects of the medical histories of both the complainant and defendant.
The book is priced at £14.95 (£9.95 for voluntary organisations) and can be obtained by contacting NAM on 020 7840 0050,
fax: 0207 7355351, or email: info@nam.org.uk info at nam.org.uk http://nam.org.uk
http://uk.gay.com/headlines/11446
Also available on request through your favorite college libraries or favorite public libraries.
Criminal HIV Transmission
by Edwin J. Bernard
NAM Publications, London 2007
http://nam.org.uk
ISBN 978-0-9551678-3-6
ISBN 9780955167836
NAM
Lincoln House
1 Brixton Road
London
SW9 6DE