New CDC HIV testing proposal is BAD medical practice.
By Dr. Dach

www.drdach.com
The new CDC proposal for mandatory HIV testing of low-risk people who come into contact with the medical system at emergency rooms and ambulatory care centers is BAD medical practice. I stand in opposition to it. In addition, I urge all physicians to stand up and join with me in opposition to these new HIV testing policies proposed by the CDC.

The new CDC recommendation to routinely perform HIV antibody testing on the entire low-risk population is a BAD IDEA.

This is why:

"Elite Controllers" are HIV positives who are alive and well without disease for many years without ever taking anti-HIV drugs. Although current opinion suggests these are rare individuals, my opinion is that
they are not so rare and many more will be stepping forward to identify themselves to participate in the Mass General Hospital study. My point is that this is a population of HIV positive people who never get sick
and don't have a disease.

The risks of toxic anti-HIV drugs (bone marrow suppression, liver failure and Stevens Johnson Syndrome) is far greater to them than the theoretical risk of Kaposi's Sarcoma or Pneumocystis Carinii pneumonia which are the hallmark of classic AIDS as first described in Los Angeles gay men in the early 1980's.

We know that the Elite Controllers are not rare because the CDC estimates that there are a quarter million HIV positives in the low-risk general population who are unaware of their HIV status. These people are generally healthy and find no reason to seek out medical
testing and are probably Elite Controllers.

The new CDC recommendations to test all these low-risk people in the general population will merely identify Elite Controllers in the population and then recommend to them the standard toxic anti-HIV drug treatment which is far more dangerous to their health than their HIV positive status which will not cause a disease in this population.

I urge all physicians to stand up and join with me in opposition to these new HIV testing policies proposed by the CDC which are BAD medical practice.

Heterosexual transmission between couples is actually quite rare and may never happen after many years of contact in some couples as reported by Dr. MacGregor, Horsburgh and Levy:

MacGregor RR et al. Failure of culture and polymerase chain reaction to detect human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in seronegative steady sexual partners of HIV-infected individuals. Clin Infect Dis. 1995 Jul;21(1):122-7.

Horsburgh CR et al. Concordance of polymerase chain reaction with HIV antibody detection. J Infect Dis. 1990 Aug;162:542-5.

Levy JA. The transmission of AIDS: the case of the infected cell. JAMA. 1988;259(20):3037-8.

Signed: www.drdach.com

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