Proposed legislation calls for routine HIV screening
Texans having blood drawn as part of any routine medical testing would be screened for the infection that causes AIDS under proposed new state legislation.
The bill, filed Wednesday by Texas Sen. Rodney Ellis, would require that health care providers inform patients that an HIV test will be performed on their blood unless they opt out. The bill is based on a 2006 recommendation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that such testing become more routine for people 13 to 64.
"I'm trying to take the stigma out of HIV-AIDS testing," said Ellis, D-Houston, who timed the filing to coincide with World AIDS Day. "If we can make HIV testing as commonplace as getting a physical or a flu shot, I think we can reduce the toll of this disease in Texas."
Ellis told attendees at a city of Houston AIDS gathering Tuesday that "you could have heard a pin drop" recently when he asked during an annual physical exam whether the blood that had been drawn would be screened for HIV.
Nationally, more than 20 percent of people living with HIV are unaware of it. Officials at Tuesday's gathering reported that one in three Texans received a late diagnosis and that someone in Houston is diagnosed with HIV every seven hours.
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