Koop Believes AIDS Tests Would Cause Shunning of Prenatal Care

U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop told a congressional hearing Monday that mandatory AIDS testing of pregnant women could be counterproductive because it might make some shun prenatal care.

Koop, who has opposed proposals for mandatory testing on the grounds that they would push sufferers of the disease underground, said there have been efforts to persuade pregnant women who are at risk to undergo voluntary testing.

Nearly all of them take the test, he told the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control at a hearing at Harlem Hospital. A mandatory system “might keep some people away from the very prenatal care they need,” he said.

The purpose of the hearing was to examine pediatric AIDS, and Koop described the scope of the problem. The federal Centers for Disease Control said there were 494 cases of AIDS in children under 13 as of May 4.

In the great majority of cases, the disease was acquired before birth. And in 73% of those cases, the mothers used intravenous drugs or were sex partners of such drug users.