Noteboom The Law Firm

Very Few Veterans Are Tested For HIV

November 3, 2010 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the single largest healthcare provider in the United States. A recent memorandum issued by the US Government stated most people should be tested for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The VA, however, doesn't seem to have paid attention.

The VA provides health care to approximately 67 million people. In 2009, the VA treated 5.7 million outpatients across their entire health care system. Of those patients, only 9.2% could claim they had been tested for HIV. Over 2009, that number was a meager 2.5%. Strangely, numbers like these seem to dominate even those areas where HIV is diagnosed in very high numbers. Researchers are baffled at the low levels of people being tested.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends everyone between 13 and 64, and pregnant women be tested for HIV. Up until 2008, federal laws mandated written informed consent be given for anyone having an HIV test with counseling within the VA. Those laws have since been repealed and served to remove the difficulty in getting an HIV test at a VA medical center. Yet, the numbers of people being tested remain low.

One very plausible reason for these numbers remaining so low is because of the stigma associated with getting an HIV test. It could be that physicians are slow to recommend HIV testing to their patients because of that stigma. This is seemingly especially true with primary care physicians in the past as not much could be done for people with HIV.

The times have changed, though, and there is a litany of treatment options available for those people who are HIV positive. Individuals who have been infected with the HIV virus need to be diagnosed and treated. The sooner the diagnoses is had, the sooner treatment can begin.