Koop Doubts Confidentiality of AIDS Tests

There is no guarantee that the results of AIDS tests will remain confidential because fallible humans are involved in the testing process, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said Monday.

The consequences of such results becoming known can be catastrophic to the person who is tested because of the stigma that continues to surround the deadly disease, Koop told reporters during a news conference.

“Confidential AIDS testing?” Koop said, shaking his head from side to side in a negative response to his own question. “Not as long as people are people.”

A problem with AIDS tests is that the disease still is associated, in most people’s minds, only with homosexuals or intravenous drug users, Koop said.

“There is associated with AIDS a very serious stigma at the moment,” he said. “The knowledge (that) a person is carrying the virus of AIDS can be extremely detrimental to his life style.”

Koop gave as an example a person who might have received blood transfusions during surgery and later was found to have contracted the AIDS virus through contaminated blood.

“If it suddenly were known . . . he could lose his job and insurance, he could lose his housing, his children or grandchildren might be asked to leave their school or his pastor might ask him to stop attending church,” Koop said. “Until we get over that stigma, we’re going to continue to have controversy over who should be tested and who shouldn’t.”

Koop said also that testing always should be accompanied by counseling.