Jewish World Review May 11, 2006 / 13 Iyar, 5766

Routine testing for AIDS

By Tucker Carlson

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The federal government recommended this week that doctors routinely test their patients for HIV. As of this summer, the CDC will encourage physicians to offer a voluntary AIDS test to everyone between the ages of the 13 and 64. Officials say they'd like HIV testing to become as common as cholesterol checks.

It's easy to see why. People who don't know they have HIV don't get treated for it. They're also far more likely to spread the disease to other people. More than half of all new infections are spread by people who don't know they're carrying the virus.

Routine testing is a great idea and a completely obvious one. The only question is: What's taken so long? AIDS has been a public health crisis for 25 years. More than half a million Americans have already died from it. A rational society would have begun routine testing in 1981.

But when it comes to AIDS, we haven't been rational. We've been intimidated, by aggressive, politicized activist groups who claimed that universal testing would stigmatize AIDS patients. Meanwhile thousands more became infected and died. It's time to ignore the activists. They were wrong. Their protests don't matter. Public health is what matters.