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It’s difficult enough these days to get through
high school without having your peers and teachers slap a label on you:
Prep. Goth. Emo. Nerd. Jock. But “HIV-positive”? For 20 years in Illinois, whenever a young person
tests positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, state health
officials have been required, under the state’s Communicable Disease
Prevention Act, to notify the principal of the school where the student is
enrolled. Advocates for children living with HIV/AIDS believe
that the law discourages students from finding out their status. They are
supporting legislation introduced earlier this month by state Rep. Sara
Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, that repeals the rule, which not only requires that
principals be notified but also allows them to disclose students’
identities and HIV/AIDS status to school nurses, teachers, and other school
officials. Only Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Missouri have similar
school reporting mandates. Cathy Krieger, chief executive officer of The
Children’s Place, a Chicago-based organization that assists kids
affected by HIV/AIDS and their families, says that the original law was
passed at a time when little was known about HIV/AIDS and how HIV is
transmitted. “It’s time to start basing policy on
medical science and not on fear,” she says. “How many adults
would get tested if they knew their boss would be told their status?”
Krieger says that the increasing rate of HIV
infection among adolescents particularly demonstrates the necessity of
removing barriers to testing. Her group cites Illinois Department of Public
Health data, released in the fall, showing a 60 percent spike in HIV cases
among people under the age of 24 since 2000. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks
Illinois sixth nationally in overall HIV/AIDS infection rates. In addition,
according to the IDPH, more than 3,000 cases of HIV had been reported in
Illinois as of December 2004 among people ages 20 to 29 — people who
are likely to have contracted the virus as adolescents. “There’s already a stigma attached to the
disease itself — maybe not as much as there used to be, but
it’s still there,” says Jonna Cooley, executive director of the
Phoenix Center in Springfield. Cooley says she doesn’t see the benefit of
principal notification, pointing out that school nurses, who are usually
informed about student-health issues such as food allergies and what
prescription medicines their charges are taking, should be taking all
necessary precautions anyway.
Sean Rose, a prevention specialist at the Phoenix
Center, which conducts both anonymous and confidential testing for HIV/AIDS
and other sexually transmitted diseases, says that “any barrier to
testing that can be eliminated should be. “Most people opt for anonymous testing because
they’re afraid their name is going to end up on a list
somewhere,” Rose says. Identifying people who are HIV-positive leads to a
false sense of security, says Krieger: “The fantasy is, we know who
the person is that’s positive and if we’re very careful around
this person then we’ll all be OK.”
The House Human Services Committee meets this morning
(Thursday, Feb. 21) to consider Feigenholtz’s proposal, House Bill
4314.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2008.
