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As San Francisco Debates Ordinance on City's HIV Testing & Counseling Process, AHF Supports Dr. Klausner, Head of San Francisco's STD Program, on HIV Testing

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 June 2006, 00:00 CDT

LOS ANGELES, June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- AIDS Healthcare Foundation, (AHF) the nation's largest AIDS organization which operates free AIDS treatment clinics in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Latin America/Caribbean, including two AHF Magic Johnson Clinics in the Bay Area (San Francisco & Oakland), today expressed support for Jeffrey Klausner, M.D., Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Sexually Transmitted Disease program, for his intention and efforts to streamline and improve San Francisco's HIV testing program and make testing more widely available in the city. Klausner, a respected public health official, recently came under criticism for his efforts to overhaul elements of the consent and counseling process for HIV testing, a process that ultimately falls under the jurisdiction of state law.

"Dr. Klausner's remarks on HIV testing in San Francisco led to widespread confusion as to what he actually intended to accomplish -- do away with a redundant, cumbersome and error-prone laboratory form, as well as streamline the counseling process for regular, repeat testers, both admirable goals," Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which also operates the largest community-based alternative HIV testing program in California conducting more that 15,000 HIV tests annually. "Unfortunately, the confusion around his remarks led many in the Bay Area to weigh in -- not surprisingly, on the side of perceived potential civil rights infringements versus prudent public health policy. We believe that Dr. Klausner's intentions to streamline elements of the HIV testing process in San Francisco were both pragmatic and prudent from a public health perspective, and we support his goals in this area. According to a recent 'Bay Area Reporter' article, it appears one of Klausner's goals was, '...in fact a simple administrative change bringing some city [testing] facilities in line with what was already standard practice at most hospitals.'

As a result of Klausner's well-intended, albeit somewhat awkward actions on HIV testing reform, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will consider an emergency ordinance (#060702) put forth by Supervisor Fiona Ma which would mandate informed written consent as well as pre-test counseling at city-funded HIV testing sites. However, as the 'Bay Area Reporter' also pointed out, "...terms like 'informed consent' and 'counseling' rarely have a uniform statewide legal definition."

In a tangential move that underscores a nationwide trend toward normalizing and de-stigmatizing the HIV testing process, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) late last week announced that it will now recommend the routine offering of HIV testing by physicians to all those patients from ages 13 to 65, a much wider and more inclusive group of individuals that it previously had advised for routine HIV testing. AHF supports the CDC's recommendation.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation

CONTACT: Ged Kenslea, Communications Director, +1-323-860-5225, or LoriYeghiayan, Associate Director, Communications, +1-323-860-5227, both of AHF

Source: PRNewswire

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