Los Angeles Times - Saturday April 4, 1992
Scott Harris; Times Staff Writer

The cutbacks, health workers say, will reduce allocations for testing to levels that existed before Earvin (Magic) Johnson's disclosure last November that he is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus--an announcement that dramatically triggered demand for tests.

The effect of the cuts, they say, is that many people who are at risk of infection will probably go untested. The impact would be felt most among people in low-income minority communities who are least able to pay for tests and, studies show, at greater risk of exposure to the virus.

Despite the cuts for anonymous testing, the state is not reducing funds for a "get tested" advertising campaign.

"It's ludicrous," said Greg Smith of the Minority AIDS Project, which provides anonymous testing on Saturdays. "They're doing an ad campaign encouraging people to get tested, but they're cutting back the testing site budgets."

The funding cuts, which would take effect at the start of the fiscal year July 1, are a reflection of the state's budget crisis, said Anna Ramirez, chief of the preventive services section of the state AIDS office.

Ramirez confirmed that funding for the advertising campaign, provided by a grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control, will remain at 1991-92 levels. She emphasized that the cuts in allocation for anonymous testing for 1992-93 largely reflect the unexpected infusion of $2.9 million this year to meet the demand spurred by Johnson's announcement.

A similar augmentation will be considered only if demand remains high, she said. "We have not seen the figures to substantiate that testing continued to increase beyond the original 1991-92 budget," Ramirez said.

But directors of some Los Angeles clinics say requests for tests continue at an unexpected pace.

The South Bay Free Clinic, with operations in Manhattan Beach and Gardena, has performed more than 300 tests per month since January and has 350 appointments booked for April, said Stewart Sokol, director of HIV and AIDS program services.

Under the cutbacks, the clinic could only afford to provide 140 tests per month, he said. "We are booking through the end of June right now," Sokol said. "There has not been any decrease in calls for appointments."

Diane Chamberlain, associate director of the Valley Community Clinic in North Hollywood, said the clinic, which had performed about 400 tests a month before Johnson's announcement, has done more than 800 a month since.

"I think we all believed the testing demand was to peak and people would lose interest again and it would get down to pre-Magic Johnson. But it really hasn't," Chamberlain said.

Requests also continue to exceed previous levels at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center, said Jordana Raiskin, a director of the center's HIV program. The result is a waiting list that exceeds two months.

"A lot of people called up out of anxiety and made appointments, but then didn't show up. Two to three months is a long time to ask people to wait," Raiskin said. "My hunch is not that these people went someplace else, but that they didn't test."

The majority of people who get tested turn out to be negative for HIV, officials say. At the Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center, the ratio of positive tests has dropped from about 10% to 6%, primarily because more heterosexuals are coming in for tests, Raiskin said.

Anonymous test sites, started shortly after the advent of AIDS antibodies tests, have been considered a key element in the campaign to prevent the spread of the virus. At these sites, people are given a code instead of using their names.

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