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Public Health Doctoral Students Engage in Discourse and Build Consensus around HIV/AIDS Policy
In September, the Mailman School’s Public Health Doctoral Students Association (PHDSA) hosted a panel discussion to examine policies regarding HIV/AIDS testing. The event, co-sponsored by the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, and the Ethics, Policy, and Human Rights Core of the HIV Center, addressed growing concerns about the ways in which local, state, and national governments are appropriating the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’s (CDC) 2006 recommendation to routinize HIV testing under a single consent.
Since the CDC's 2006 recommendation, many legal standards are being called into question. Legislation in New York City once mandated a legal guarantee of confidential testing for HIV, written, informed consent specific to the HIV test, and specific pre- and post-test counseling. September’s event, entitled “Legal and Ethical Challenges to HIV Testing Policy: Current Controversies in Individual Rights and Public Health,” examined these policy changes from a local and global perspective.
Ronald Bayer, PhD, professor of Sociomedical Sciences (SMS), moderated the panel, which consisted of a diverse group of leaders in HIV/AIDS care and advocacy. The panel included: Donna Futterman, MD, director of the Adolescent AIDS Program at Montefiore Medical Center; Cynthia Knox, Esq., deputy executive director of the HIV Law Project; Soraya Elcock, deputy director for Policy and Government Relations at Harlem United Community AIDS Center; and Jonathan Cohen, director of the Law and Health Initiative at the Open Society Institute.
Much of the discussion focused on proposals to change HIV testing consent procedures toward an "opt out" approach and on policy efforts to balance individual rights and the public’s health. While participants did not always agree on whether testing should be “opt in” or “opt out,” consensus developed during the course of the discussion, agreeing upon the need for increased access to testing, post-test counseling, additional funding, and incentives to encourage doctors to talk with patients about the importance and benefits of testing.
Said Benjamin Mason Meier PHDSA member and SMS doctoral candidate, “PHDSA events act as a forum for DrPH and PhD candidates to contribute to the field and engage in pressing public health debates.” He continued, “We are extremely privileged to be at the Mailman School, where we can come together as students to influence these discourses on the future of public health.”
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