Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Miami Herald (MH) - Friday July 26, 1991
Susan L. Spencer; Herald Writer
Dr. David M. Baron said Thursday that he is requiring all potential surgical patients to take a test for HIV infection. Anyone who refuses to take the test will be refused treatment.
"I'm just asking my patients for the same consideration that I give them," he said, pointing out he has tested negative.
Dr. McKinley Chesire, president of the Palm Beach County Medical Society, endorsed Baron's new policy as "responsible and ethical." He hopes it becomes standard procedure.
A national debate over whether to require AIDS tests for health care workers has followed revelations that a Stuart dentist, David Acer, apparently infected at least five patients -- the only documented case of its kind. Some dentists, as a result, have posted certificates on their office walls verifying that they've tested negative for the virus.
A spokeswoman for the American Medical Association said she did not know of any other doctors who required an HIV test of patients before treatment.
She said the AMA adopted a new policy at its June convention that prohibits physicians from refusing to treat someone who didn't take the test. Baron, affiliated with five Palm Beach County hospitals, said he has treated patients with HIV infection and fully developed AIDS, and he will continue to do so in the future. He will continue to perform emergency trauma surgery without testing.
He said he uses the same infection-control procedures on everyone. He's just "more alert and cautious" with HIV-positive people or people with AIDS.
But Allan H. Terl, a Fort Lauderdale public policy lawyer and former chairman of the Broward Community Task Force on AIDS, objected to any suggestion of two levels of service for patients.
"Why wouldn't he handle positive and negative patients in the same way and use the same precautions on everyone?" he said.
He called Baron's policy ineffective and said it "only fuels the hysteria about AIDS." The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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