Info

The Hispanic AIDS Forum (HAF), founded in 1985, is New York City's first and largest Latino-run HIV/AIDS organization offering treatment education and prevention services to the city's Latino population. HAF's mission is to reduce HIV transmission and secure timely, quality support services for Latinos affected by HIV/AIDS. HAF was founded by a group of Latino health and human service professionals and community leaders in response to the devastation that AIDS was causing among Latinos in New York City and the alarming lack of public attention to the crisis. On an annual basis, HAF provides concrete care and treatment and prevention services to more than 900 enrolled clients, disburses nearly $2 Million in cash assistance to PLHIV/AIDS, provides more than 15,000 units of supportive and prevention counseling, distributes over 100,000 condoms and reaches more than 30,000 Latinos with HIV education messages. More to the point of HIV Counseling and Testing Services and Informed Consent, since March 2002 HAF has conducted almost 10,000 HIV antibody tests with close to 3% resulting in positive results and linkage to care. Our 20 years of experience in providing HIV related services to Latinos --one of the hardest hit, more underserved and challenging communities to serve in NYC-- is significant, relevant and qualifies us to speak to the issue at hand. NYC Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Thomas Frieden, has proposed that Article 27-F of the Public Health Law be amended to: Eliminate the current right of patients to written informed consent when taking an HIV test. Eliminate all currently required pre-test counseling when giving an HIV test. Increase penalties for violation of HIV confidentiality or failing to secure verbal consent. According to Dr. Frieden, these proposed changes are based on the following public health goals: Increase the likelihood that patients have an HIV test. Use the knowledge obtained from HIV tests to prevent the spread of HIV infection. Use that knowledge to improve the health of persons that are HIV-infected. While the Hispanic AIDS Forum wholeheartedly supports the expressed intentions of the proposal to amend HIV Confidentiality Laws, we respectfully take exception with the proposal to remove written informed consent and eliminate pre-test counseling when testing for HIV. In the question of informed consent and pre-test counseling, we have not had the benefit of empirical evidence to support the assertion that either in any way interfere with HIV antibody testing processes. Quite the contrary, existing Confidentiality Laws establish gold standards which in themselves have provided the legal protections and the trust in the public health system to thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers who test for HIV annually. It has been these very protections that made it possible for white men and women to voluntarily incorporate routine HIV testing to their medical care with extraordinary outcomes. Consider the work of just two New York-based institutions as evidence that existing practices, i.e., informed consent and pre-test counseling are not barriers to HIV testing and linkage to care: On October 3, 2006, "the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) President Alan D. Aviles announced that the city's public hospital system tested 92,000 patients during fiscal year 2006, a 63 percent increase over the 58,000 tested in FY 2005. HHC expanded testing by using HIV rapid tests and by making testing part of routine medical care for a wider group of patients, including more women and teens.