Ok, so maybe this isn’t directly about sex, and maybe its only interesting to me, but I thought this was a pretty damned important, via the Kaiser network.
Here’s the thing: if you go to your doctor for an HIV test, you get a confidential test, which means that if you test positive the positive result and your basic demographics are reported to the state – for statistical purposes. Your doctor may also urge you or take charge of partner notification – while protecting your identity as much as possible. If you get anonymous testing – which doctors don’t do, but state and city healthy clinics do, you don’t even have to give your name, but positive results will be reported to the state (no partner notification, etc, because they don’t know who you are).
Starting in 2006, the state of Illinois will be reporting the NAMES of confidential testees if they are positive.
Holy privacy invasion, Batman!
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The Illinois Department of Public Health in January 2006 will begin requiring state health care officials to submit the names of people who test HIV-positive rather than the alphanumeric codes that they currently submit, Illinois Public Health Director Eric Whitaker announced on Wednesday, the Rockford Register Star reports. The move is in response to a CDC recommendation that states implement names-based reporting because code-based reporting often has been inaccurate or incomplete (Chambers, Rockford Register Star, 10/20). Beginning next year, some federal funding distributed under the Ryan White CARE Act will be associated with the number of HIV cases in each state, as reported by the CDC (Sherrard Blesch, Daily Southtown, 10/20). “The federal government has made the decision rather simple: Switch to name-based reporting or lose millions of dollars for essential HIV care, prevention and housing programs,” Mark Ishaug, executive director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said (Advocate, 10/20). Whitaker said the health department will not submit the names of HIV-positive people to CDC. Tom Hughes, Illinois’ deputy director of health protection, said that although the new rule will require the state to submit the names of people getting confidential HIV testing, anonymous testing still will be available. With confidential testing, a person submits his or her name but the name is kept private, whereas with anonymous testing, no name is submitted.
Gallery Carre
