Despite national guidelines, private insurers, ER, federal and state agencies fail to routinely test for HIV

While the U.S. AIDS epidemic simmers largely unnoticed by most Americans, a failure to widely implement routine HIV testing continues to fuel its spread, HIV researchers and experts said today. Almost 60,000 Americans were infected with HIV last year, and, nationwide, 50-to-70 percent of new sexually transmitted infections are spread by people who do not know they are infected. Guidelines issued two years ago by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that all Americans ages 13-64 be routinely tested in all healthcare settings. Now, data show that although such testing could save years of healthy life and limit the spread of HIV, they are largely not being implemented.

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