Routine HIV testing urged to save lives, money.

Every man woman and child should be encouraged to have as many hiv tests
as the medical health plan will cover.   I am not sure if that would be
one a day, one a week, or one a month bearing in mind some people have
sex everyday.

Encouraging patients to agree to routine HIV testing -- even when they
appear to be at low risk -- would not only prolong lives but save
health-care dollars, a joint Canadian-U.S. study suggests.

Too, true.  I think it is important to encourage  all low risk patients
to agree to testing simply because of the fact they are low risk or no
risk would incur millions or billions of dollars of negative results
giving society statistics of a comfort zone that there is little or no
aids in North America.  Sort of like the BSE problem.  If you only test
low risk beef, beef under two years, there is little likelihood of
finding bse.  Brilliant.

"We know that if we screen people routinely as they come in contact with
the health-care system that we will identify some people who have not
previously been identified as being HIV-positive," said Dr. Ahmed
Bayoumi, an internal medicine specialist at St. Michael's Hospital in
Toronto and a study co-author.

No question if you screen people - whatever that means - as they come
into contact with the health-care system that you will identify some
people who have not previously been identified as being HIV positive, or
HIV negative as the case may be as well as positive for stds, tb and a
host of other medical conditions.

Picking up early HIV infection in patients who visit doctors' offices,
clinics or hospital emergency wards would allow them to start sooner on
antiviral drugs known to prolong life, said Dr. Bayoumi, while
preventing them from unwittingly spreading the virus.

I understand some antiviral drugs are very, very, very expensive.
Are all these drugs free to patients in Canada whether they have
medical coverage or pharmacare coverage?  Is that true in the United
States as well, as this was a joint study, that all these drugs are
available to United States patients free of charge as well?  

The study, published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, found
that routine voluntary screening to pick up infections earlier
represents good value for money -- despite the fact patients are taking
high-priced drugs longer.

No question that routine voluntary screening to pick up infections
earlier represents good value for money -- despite the fact patients are
taking high-priced drugs longer.  

But hasn't it been the case since almost the first discovered case of
HIV or any std, or tb or any other serious contageous disease that
routine voluntary screening/testing is beneficial and so is the
free supply of drugs to cure, prevent, or assist recover from any
disease?

Is there something I am not understanding here?   Is this something that
society in general and the medical community didn't already know and
they needed a new study to support such a proposition?  

Using a cost-effectiveness formula, researchers determined that routine
HIV screening compares favourably to such tests as mammography or
colonoscopy, "which are currently recommended by many treatment
guidelines," Dr. Bayoumi said.

Routine, blood pressure testing, tb, diabetes, cancer, or any other
disease being routinely tested for is beneficial to the individual and
society in general.   Of coure, this only works if the tests and
treatments are free, and they are in all cases and circumstances,
correct?

In Canada, testing for the virus that causes AIDS is performed only with
a patient's consent.

Well, that is true of most medical treatment.  It is not a common
or legal practice to grab people off the street, roll up their arm and
grab some blood in a needle for purposes of random testing.

Generally, people seek a test when they have symptoms or are at high
risk for the disease and want to know, Dr. Bayoumi said. All pregnant
women are also offered screening.

Sounds reasonable.

About 56,000 Canadians have HIV-AIDS; about 4,000 are infected each
year.

Okay, so in a population of 35 million Canadians, is that higher, lower,
or any different than any other disease that is or is not being tested
for in Canada?   And can Canadians just walk into a hospital or doctors
office and ask for a free tb, AIDS, cancer or any other test just
because the want to free of charge or is an AIDS/HIV test the only one?

In the United States, 950,000 have the disease, and about 40,000
contract the virus annually.

An internet check indicated a US population at just under 300 million so
is it the norm or is it higher or lower for 40,000 people to test
positive for hiv in the usa compared to any other diseases
in a given year?

Studies have shown that prevalence of the disease of AIDS in North
America is higher than official figures suggest.
Canadian Press

I think the medical community has been asking for funding for research,
education, and outreach programs since the early cases of the disease
first appeared and the reply globally was first it was only a small
disease affecting homosexuals, so a waste of money and let them die,
then what followed was little or no press, good or bad, about the
disease, then there was the abstinence program where in spite of every
human between the ages of 14 and 100 participating in romantic
activities 24/7/365, the recommendation for everyone from society and
the religious community was self-control, abstinence.  Think again!