Washington, DC, rolled up its sleeves on June 27, National HIV Testing Day, to become the first U.S. city to begin screening every resident from age 14 to 84. “We’re setting a high bar to jump-start our system,” says Leo Rennie of the DC Department of Health. At 2%, the capital has one of the nation’s highest HIV rates. While many advocates cheered the campaign, others questioned if it violated HIV rights. The initiative springs from a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommendation that HIV testing become as routine as, say, blood-pressure readings, prompting cities to discard privacy measures like written consent. American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson Rose Saxe says, “We don’t disagree with the CDC’s or DC’s goal of getting more people tested. We’re just concerned with the way they are going about it.” What’s more, Saxe says of possibly ditching test counseling, “Testing is being talked about as if it were prevention in and of itself,” she adds, “but it is no substitute for prevention education.” This could get testy.
