Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The San Francisco Chronicle - Saturday, December 11, 1999
Because of remarkable advances in AIDS drugs, people with HIV have a much greater chance, fortunately, of slowing progression of the disease so that it never reaches the end-stage, full-blown AIDS. Therefore, AIDS data alone provides little information about the newly infected.
And without such information, it is difficult to target prevention programs and health-care services for Americans with HIV, who are estimated to number about 600,000. Another 297,000 have AIDS.
That a detailed profile of HIV in the United States is needed is indisputable. How the information that creates that profile is to be obtained is more problematic.
The CDC is recommending, but not requiring, that states keep confidential records of the names of people testing positive for HIV. Such a system makes it easier to track where and how the virus is spreading than one using a secret code, CDC officials say.
For the foreseeable future at least, there will be no consequence, such as loss of federal funds, for states that use coding rather than names. The CDC should stick with that policy. Demanding names has the very real potential of discouraging people from getting tested for HIV and in turn denying them drugs that could prolong or save their lives.
The next step in California's reporting process should be passage --for the third time -- of San Francisco Assemblywoman Carole Migden's bill that would use a confidentiality-protecting coding system to report HIV cases to health departments.
Davis, who vetoed the bill once, should sign it when it comes back to his desk even if the CDC foots the bill. It is important that California be included in the national portrait of the AIDS and HIV epidemic.
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