Kaiser Daily U.S. HIV/AIDS Report
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
A bill proposed by Washington, D.C., council member Marion Barry (D), which "has been stalled in committee since July," would mandate HIV testing and counseling for all district jail inmates upon admission, the Washington Post reports. Since 2006, the district has administered "voluntary HIV tests to all inmates upon admission, although they can opt out," and "99 percent, or more than 27,000, inmates have opted to take the test, according to the Department of Corrections," the newspaper reports. Walter Smith, executive director of D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, Corrections Director Devon Brown and HIV/AIDS Administration Director Shannon Hader all oppose mandatory testing, according to the article. "Twenty-one states test inmates for HIV when they are admitted to prison, according to the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. But most states test only with an inmate's consent or upon court order" (Ricard, 8/30).
Kansas City Star columnist Lewis Diuguid addresses how national black organizations are responding to the HIV/AIDS threat. Diuguid notes the "Act Against AIDS," five-year, $10 million effort by CDC "that partners with 14 black organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Medical Association, the National Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the National Newspaper Publishers Association." The impact of HIV/AIDS was also addressed at this year's National Association of Black Journalists convention, he says. Diuguid writes that Rev. Eric Williams, executive director of the Calvary Community Outreach Network in Kansas City, said, "I think [HIV/AIDS] should be included in the health care debate. We keep hearing there is an emergency, but resources never follow the call for an emergency" (8/30).
Deborah Kotz writes in the U.S. News & World Report blog "On Women" that the debate surrounding whether CDC will recommend newborn male circumcision as part of an effort to curb the spread of HIV is "complex." According to the blog, "Circumcision is not just a medical procedure but a religious and cultural one," and "[i]n terms of the science, it's not clear how much circumcision will protect American men from being infected with HIV, where the virus is largely transmitted through homosexual contact." In addition, there is "potential here for the spreading of misinformation," she writes, concluding, "... CDC folks will have to evaluate the latest research carefully before deciding to take a cultural practice and turn it into a public health mission" (8/31).
The Kaiser Daily U.S. HIV/AIDS Report is published by the Kaiser Family Foundation. © 2009 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
