I really don't think that is a good idea.
If people believe they won't get AIDS, which is the scariest STI, they'll be less likely to use protection, which will increase the spread of things like chlamydia (which has only minor side effects, like possible infertility) . Also, I bet the error rate goes up to a scary level once you have it being self-administered by drunk people.
Realistically, in the first world it's gay men who most need to worry about HIV, due both to the greater likelihood of it being transmitted by anal sex and the much greater preexisting incidence among gay men.
"A recent CDC study found that in 2008 one in five (19%) MSM in 21 major US cities were infected with HIV, and nearly half (44%) were unaware of their infection." -- eep
Heterosexual college-town hookups? Likely to give you all sorts of things, but probably not AIDS. But expect to see these quick AIDS tests in West Hollywood and the Castro real soon now.
Well, the first thing to note is that the numbers are for MSM - men seeking men. That includes men who identify as straight, bisexual, or other, but who have sex with other men. You may not consider this much of a distinction, but for people who study this, it changes things significantly.
And for straight men who don't want to have sex with other men, it should still be a concern when over a quarter of new infections are suspected to be due to transmission during heterosexual sex.
Ah, but what happens when someone just contracted HIV? It's estimated that this is when someone is most highly infectious, and the test won't tell you a damn thing.
I'd like it because it's a bit more convenient than going in every three months, but for testing a date? Bad idea.
Full disclosure: I am an HIV-negative gay man with poz friends and acquaintances.
It's counter-intuitive, but it's not a better idea.
Especially when drunk, people have unfocused attention. Signals of trust are amplified. "He's safe, and we don't have a condom, so just this once..." If you go into a hookup thinking every single person is HIV-positive with an entire host of other STDs, you are much less likely to get one.
You don't want to know how many people I've talked to who got HIV from someone they trusted, and "knew" was negative. On the other hand, by law of averages I've slept with at least 20 poz people. I don't know who they are, but I was smart enough to be careful.
The problem is that it could give you false confidence. A person who is recently infected will show up negative in this test. If you have unprotected sex with them, you are 4,000% more likely to get HIV from them than you are a person who tested positive!
As a current university student, it's not my paternalism. It kind of sucks, doesn't it?
But it's like lots of things in life: sometimes we can't have nice things because other people, who are much less mature and sensible than you, will misuse them, so nobody is allowed them.
Also, "paternalism" is an irritating dog whistle. We are talking about "public health policy", which also means such sensible things as that you can't have plastic surgery done in a car garage or buy cola sweetened with lead acetate or Cyclamate.
I oppose making a less safe substitute available and I think how people actually act is fair game to consider.
Condoms don't substitute for something equivalent that is safer (some people try to make out that they substitute for abstinence, but that is obviously not true since abstinence is obviously not equivalent).
This device could equivalently substitute for condoms (actually, it's probably cheaper and more fun than condoms as long as you don't mind a small pinprick), but it's less safe. Thus my opposition.
Surely then you are opposed to The Pill and other contraceptives that do not hinder the spread of STDs. A major, if not the primary, reason people use condoms under usual circumstances is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
This device is not a substitute, nor will anyone with a conscience and a brain present it that way. It is something to be used in addition to existing technologies and sensibilities. It is about increasing available information so that people are able to make more informed decisions.
That's a different sort of information (how to act to protect yourself) and abstinence-only is not a public health policy. It is a pseudo-religious politician policy.
Now I think about it, you and me both should be fighting the catholic church and the american right over abstinence-only instead of fighting each other over exactly how HIV testing kits should be distributed.
I don't think anyone who will go to the trouble of testing their potential partners with this will forego using traditional methods as well. It's a lot more troublesome, after all.
I see what you're saying, but I'd argue it's more like opposing the introduction of comfortable new rubber seatbelts instead of those ugly, old-fashioned webbing ones. Who cares which one works better; people want the convenience only a rubber can give them.
No. An even better example than my first is opposing the installation of air-bags because they might cause people to stop using seatbelts.
Unlike this rubber seatbelt strawman, these tests actually work, and actually have a use. What is their use? Allowing people to make more informed decisions regarding their sex life and HIV. What is HIV in layman's terms? A death sentence. These chips will potentially allow people to avoid an untimely and painful DEATH, and you oppose them because you hypothesise that stupid people might ignore condoms as a result and get something instead that is either not deadly, or require nothing more than a few shots of penicillin.
Opposing the spread of such devices is beyond comprehension to me. It's flat out abhorrent.
You are wildly misinformed! HIV is not a death sentence in first world countries. It's an awful life to live, granted, but it's still a life to live.
The real concern here is that this test isn't accurate for as long as THREE MONTHS after initial infection, and that during that early stage you at at lease FOUR HUNDRED TIMES more likely to pass on the infection. It's not to be used to check if you're still healthy so now you can go bang that hottie at the bar, it's to be used to see if you have HIV and need to get treated.
Downvotes. Nice. I guess people really don't care about HIV in Africa.
This whole conversation is only serving to make me more and more cynical than I normally like to be. I'm beginning to get the strong impression that there are some members of society that would actually be disappointed if a total cure that could be widely deployed to this plague were found. Like HIV is the enforcer for their idea of proper morals and skin color. I've heard this idea bounced around in LGBT communities before but never really paid it much credence until now.
No, I think where the disagreement lies between you and other posters is that they believe that people are stupid and if they had such a test they wouldn't use condoms... This argument is made for college town and the US (and Europe). And call me cynical but I agree with it, people are dumb, misinformed and would most likely think that they're ok if the test is negative and not bother with condoms. This would actually increase the number of people with aids since people who just contracted aids and are highly contagious will show as negative because they don't have any antibodies yet...
For Third world countries, it's a different matter, I think this test is great. It helps a real problem by providing a convenient way to test for aids to doctors in remote villages and might help slow this awful epidemic...
That argument is absolute shit. The reason people in the demographic of "college towns" use condoms is because they don't want pregnancies, not because they are actually afraid of HIV.
Therefore: 1) This is also an argument for banning The Pill and the like in college towns. Clearly an idiotic idea. 2) Knowing their partner does not have HIV will not prevent people most people from using a condom if they were going to otherwise.
College kids don't worry about HIV to begin with. They will either wear a condom, or won't. Knowing their partner does not have HIV won't effect the decision since that is the default assumption anyway. People inclined to not make this assumption are also intelligent enough to realize that this test has false negatives.
