Some people will be spared infection by being warned of danger. Others can get earlier treatment and counseling. Further transmission can be halted. The political waters have been too murky for the medical community and our public health officials to navigate. To date, only New York has universal HIV screening of all newborns.
Partner notification is in shambles.
The failure to practice appropriate prevention against AIDS is the biggest health blunder of our time, one that endangers our own children. Some have proposed reporting HIV by using a cryptic code or unique identifier, but these proposals are just a ploy to block partner notification programs. Sanction of this dangerous policy by any public health official, legislator or health care provider should chill all of us. No other communicable disease is afforded such political rights. When a unique identifier is used to report an HIV infection, no information on the person's name, gender, age or race is given to public health officials.