President Barack Obama issued a statement
on Wednesday marking National HIV Testing Day that includes praise for
better access to testing because of the Affordable Care Act but does not
include facts about the disease and those who are at highest risk of contracting it.
“National HIV Testing Day highlights the importance of HIV testing
and the fight against HIV/AIDS,” Obama said. “Of the over 1.1 million
Americans living with HIV, more than 200,000 are unaware of their
infection, and may unknowingly be transmitting the virus to others.
“The Affordable Care Act now requires many health insurance plans to
provide recommended preventive health services with no out of pocket
costs, giving millions of Americans better access to HIV testing,” Obama
said.
The president did not, however, cite the statistics from Health and
Human Services’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that show
while “gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) represent
2 percent of the U.S. population” in 2009 “MSM accounted for 61 percent
of new HIV infections.”
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1 comment:
Modern drug therapies have rendered HIV a chronic condition instead of a death sentence in developed countries. Small wonder people get careless and take stupid risks.
There are people who are still alive after 15 - 20 years of drug therapy and a whole new field of medicine is evolving to care for the HIV+ population as it ages.
Big Pharma rubs its hands together in anticipation of future profits.
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