Question

1. Investigate Pennsylvania state’s laws regarding testing and reporting HIV/AIDS. Summarize what the laws say about informed consent for testing, mandatory reporting, and counseling. Do the state’s statutes enable the provider or the local health departments to contact any known partners, spouses, or needle-sharing companions? Can criminal charges can be filed against anyone who knowingly exposes another person to HIV without the partner being aware of the risk? Answers will vary. The CDC State HIV Laws site gives information by state. It is listed as a recommended resource for this week’s reading and preparation.

Answer 1

Pennsylvania state's law regarding testing and reporting HIV/AIDS, comes under Pennsylvania's Act 148, which is also known as confidentiality of HIV-related information act.

According to this act:

1. This act prohibits health-care providers and social service workers from revealing HIV-related information without the permission of infected person except in certain situations.
2. This health care provider shall document the patient's consent of acceptance or refusal to test rather that getting informed written consent.
3. This act says that counselling before doing HIV test is not required, though the test must be explained, including its purpose, how it culd be used, its limitations and the meaning of the results.
4. This act prevents unauthorized HIV testing and disclosure of HIV-related information, without individual's consent.
5. This act offers an 'opt-out' format, meaning that the patient is advised that an HIV test will be performed unless she or he specifically declines it.
6. This law also states negative results no longer need to be given to person.

PARTNER NOTIFICATION

Criminalization may also threaten the public health practice of encouraging people with HIV to voluntarily share contact information of their sexual or needle-sharing partners to public health authorities so that their partners can be offered HIV testing.

Prosecution may result in the disclosure of private medical information, creating a potential risk of partner violence and a negative and irreversible impact on others.HIV-specific laws criminalize behaviours that can potentially expose anither to HIV.

It is also suggested that the health care providers need to report partners of newly diagnosed HIV cases inorder to prevent further transmission and to rule out the HIV status of their sex partner. Therefore, this is not considered as an offence. The CDC has created a risk factor tool that allows the user to customize the specific risk of transmission based on gender, HIV status, partner demographics and sexual activity.

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