HIV Tests: Public Safety vs. Privacy

A New York man accused of infecting at least nine women with HIV told authorities he had sex with between 50 and 75 women without telling them of his HIV status. The health commissioner in rural Chautauqua County broke precedent and identified the man in an effort to learn his whereabouts. Outrage that one 20-year-old with HIV could infect so many young women has led to calls for public reporting of positive HIV tests. This has sparked a national debate over whether publicizing HIV test results would be an invasion of privacy or helpful in saving lives

ANNA MARIE STOLLEY asked young adults whether the names of those who test positive for HIV should be made public.

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DAVID SAMUEL

19, UCLA sophomore

A person’s HIV status should not be made public. We shouldn’t have to protect people who are sexually active by revealing that their partners are HIV-positive. If a person doesn’t know if his partner is HIV-positive, he shouldn’t have sex until he finds out.

A person should not be forced into disclosing his HIV-positive status because it could have serious consequences. People will treat him differently once they know.

People with HIV should be trusted to be responsible about their condition. The guy in New York was just a wacko. There will always be crazy people who go out and kill. Here, his weapon was HIV.

It would be a good idea to have more education about how you can get HIV. I didn’t learn much about condoms in my sex education classes in junior high or high school. I found out about it outside of school--from my friends and even from television commercials.

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STEPHANIE CHARLES

18, Santa Monica College freshman

There should be a law that everyone has to get tested for HIV and everyone’s results are available to everyone else. Yes, people say that if you make HIV test results public, then some people won’t want to get tested. But if you make it mandatory, then it doesn’t matter if they want to or not.

Saving lives is more important than an individual’s right to privacy. A law making test results public can help people have important information available to them before they expose themselves to HIV.

AIDS is different than cancer or another illness. You can’t catch cancer from another person. You can get HIV through other people and they aren’t always honest beforehand. It’s dangerous to have sex these days.

You hear on the news about people who use sexually transmitted diseases as weapons. There are incidents where people sleep with as many others as possible so that they all can catch the disease. My friend told me about a guy she knew who was mad at a girl, so he slept with her even though he had AIDS. He really wanted to infect her. We need to protect ourselves from people like that.

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PAOLA PEDERZOLI

24, nurse, Westwood

HIV test results should be kept confidential. If you are HIV-positive or have AIDS, you don’t necessarily want everyone to know. It’s like any other disease--cancer, diabetes. Would you want to have that information public?

I work at a hospital with children diagnosed with cancer and other diseases, including AIDS. I know people who treat me differently when they learn I work with HIV and AIDS patients. They worry I could get it. If there was a public list of people with HIV, some people would use the information to force people out of a job, harass them or keep them out of a neighborhood.

People who know they are HIV-positive shouldn’t go around sleeping with people without telling them, like that guy in New York did. On the other hand, you take a certain risk when you sleep with someone. You should use condoms. People who are sexually active should get tested for HIV every six months.

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LINDSAY ADLER

20, data entry processor, Tarzana

I wish people could be responsible enough so we wouldn’t have to make the test results public, but there are so many irresponsible people out there. They don’t get tested or if they do, they don’t tell the person they’re with that they are HIV-positive. And think about all the people who have unprotected sex. I know people who are sexually active, have never been tested and don’t use protection. Some people are just selfish.

If there was a list of people who are HIV-positive, then everyone--the young people more than anyone--could know what’s really going on.

But I do have problems with publicly identifying HIV results: You don’t know who’s going to get hold of a list like that. Someone might just want the dirt on someone else. If test results were no longer anonymous, many people wouldn’t get tested. It’s very important that they do, so maybe test results shouldn’t be made public.