Should every adult in America be forced to take an HIV test? Even more, should everyone identified as HIV positive be forced to have a "mark" or identification on their ID?

There are people with HIV that knowingly pass on the HIV virus and it can take years for an investigation to find out. Would it be a good idea If the government forced HIV citizens to have a tattoo mark somewhere private so the opposite sex would know? Even druggies could see this mark and keep from sharing a needle with an HIV citizen? Or would that be going to far to protect Americans?

Mike

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I think if you are HIV positive then you should have a mark of some kind. Now the question is if it should be visiable? I think it should not be. But it should be visiable as soon as you take off you shirt of pants or what ever.

If I were single, I would want to know if someone had HIV before we done anything.

Should people be mandatorly tested? That is a hard question, I trust my wife and she does not need an HIV test. I get HIV tested every year because it is mandatory by the Army, when I'm out of the Army I will not get tested.

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They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

I was actually wondering about that. So, everyone in the US army must be tested for HIV every year? What else must you be tested for?

Agashi,

I know in the Air Force we are tested every time we go overseas or come back. It is a requirement or you can't get orders. You are also tested for Hepatitis. We are given shots for just about everything else!

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How do you get the idea that people should be marked as having HIV from the article? The article isn't about forcing people to be tested for AIDS, but rather that making testing part of regular check up procedures (like taking your temperature). Under current laws you have to fill out specific paper work for HIV testing and that paper work can make people less likely to get tested. I know one of my doctors tried to convince me not to get tested because this form would be placed in the front of my medical file. Anyone who may handle my file may conclude I was gay because of the AIDS test and cause all sorts for me and my family.

I can't believe you even consider the notion. It is immoral and illegal. It reeks of the same logic behind forced sterilizations in the early 20th century when Hitler came to power and eugenics held sway in America. To consider this proposal would to throw away all sense of decency and human rights, and gives government unlimited legal power over a person.

I didn't say I got it from the article. I was asking for discussion sake.

As apposed to sleeping with people knowing you have HIV? I am NOT saying we place a star of David on anyone. I am saying there should be a mark somewhere or even on your driver's license. We place people's medical conditions all the time on ID cards. Why not HIV?

If a person is diagnosed with HIV they can spread the disease to hundreds of people. There have been several cases of this. They get punished but it is obviously way late for the victims.

How about known drug users? Known prostitutes? Sex and sharing needles are the leading ways of spreading the disease. Wouldn't it be safer if drug users could have a way to verify the guy they are sharing a needle with had AIDS? Or how about a john sleeping with a prostitute?

The solution today doesn't work! Many states require AIDS tests for prostitutes. Then they release them and say, "if you get caught again and have AIDS we can charge you with attempted murder." Wipty doo!!! That will not stop a prostitute! She wants to eat and buy drugs. But if a john can say, "show me your stomach (or whatever) and look for the mark then he may be able to avoid AIDS.

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Also, don't doctors deserve the decency to know if the patient they are working with has AIDS?

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I don't think there should be any way to mark a person with HIV/AIDS. Yes it would be helpful to some people, but marking someone ilooks like the Nazis marking the Jews. I think you should have to get a blood test which checks for that, and other kinds of diseases, and possibly DNA defects that could show up if you were to have a child (this last one being optional) before you marry a person, and the doctors should have to share that information with both people invloved (even though that'll never happen). People shouldn't be having sex with people they aren't married to, or at least in a long term relationship with. By long term I don't mean 6 months or a year, that might be long term to some people, but it's really not that long. As for the drug addicts what can I say, they shouldn't be using drugs. When people do these things (drugs, multiple sex partners, getting tatoos at unsanitary places, etc) they put themselves at risk and if they contract a disease, they have to suffer the consiquenses. I feel bad for the kids who are born with it because their mother got it somehow, or the rare person who got it through a blood transfusion, and I would find it extreamley difficult to permenatly mark an innocent person. So if you can't mark the innocent, you can't mark the people who got it through their own misdeeds.

Care to explain the difference?

SO what would you do if you slept with a woman and woke up next to her and she said "WELCOME TO HIV"? IS that immoral OR illegal?

Now a question, why have there been 2 responses that have brought up Germany/Hilter? They are completley different in ALL aspects of the situation.

Before you start in, I'm half German, my mother was born in Dresden in the early 40's.

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CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

Now I have to admit that this discussion is probably the most "interesting" thing I have seen on here since I joined.

Allow me to put things into perspective from a former medic's point of view. Before HIV was a known factor, I would hop in the back of the ambulance, go to a car wreck, and start working on people that were bloodied beyond recognition. Soap and water washed the blood off...usually at the hospital after we transported. Along comes HIV and justifiably we started adding universal precautions, body substance isolation, etc. to the protocols.

Today, many healthcare workers have developed latex allergies from wearing the gloves so much. The problem has become so large that most places only stock non-latex nitrile gloves for their staff and most places ask their patients if they have a latex allergy.

Okay, so I'm getting off point here right?...sort of.

HIV was only the tip of the iceberg. Its discovery led to the recognition that there are many diseases out there that can cause the public harm and there needed to be education on prevention at mulitple levels.

An individual who has HIV has the right to privacy...within limits. Their protected health information should include the fact that they are HIV positive so that their healthcare can be properly managed and to protect the healthcare provider.

Criminally convicted sex offenders should have their HIV status posted on the registries. Victims have a right to know and the criminal had forfeited his right to privacy.

Labeling or marking individuals with HIV in particular...useless. People leading risky lives and taking part in risky behaviors like unprotected sex should be worried about many things besides HIV. "Run of the mill" sexually transmitted diseases can result in cervical cancer for women. Hepatitis can ravage a person and cause painful and horrific changes to their quality of life.

People need to be careful. Casual sex should be a thing of the past. Women are being counseled to utilize at least two forms of birth control these days with one of them being a condom.

Ilicit drug users are digging their own grave. If they aren't smart enough to use clean needles (often provided free at needle exchanges) and share a needle with their junkie buddy take their life into their own hands...and it isn't necessarily going to be HIV that takes them down.

One out of every 4 or 5 people has herpes. Granted, it probably isn't going to kill you like hepatitis, tuberculosis, AIDS, cancer, etc...but it isn't good.

The fact of the matter is that every generation or two we will have a new disease to deal with. Advances in medicine will allow us to "control" or minimize the risk to others and either manage or irradicate the disease.

Labeling individuals that have the disease will only cause more social problems than we need to deal with. Attack the problem, not the individual being affected by the problem.

Can someone help me down from this soapbox now?