ACLU Tells San Francisco Department of Public Health Not to Report Names of People Deceived About HIV Confidentiality
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org
SAN FRANCISCO – The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the San
Francisco Department of Public Health today demanding that the San Francisco
City Clinic stop misleading people being tested for HIV. A new state law
that went into effect on April 17, 2006 requires all health care providers and
laboratories to report names of individuals with HIV to the local health
department, yet the City Clinic run by the San Francisco Department of Public
Health has been telling people taking the HIV test that their names would not be
reported to the state if they test positive. The ACLU is demanding that
the Department of Public Health not report the names of those
deceived.
“Being diagnosed with HIV still comes with huge consequences,” said
Tamara Lange, a Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Northern California and
the ACLU AIDS Project. “If the Department of Public Health really wants to
encourage people to find out their status and get treatment, the last thing they
should be doing is giving people false information. This is exactly the
kind of deception that makes people scared of getting tested.”
The ACLU
became aware of the problem after a local resident went to the City Clinic, one
of the busiest clinics in San Francisco, to be tested on May 26, 2006.
Prior to being administered the test, the resident was asked to sign a consent
form that stated that his name would not be reported if he turned out to be
positive. (A copy of the redacted form he received is attached
below.) The resident signed the form and went ahead with the
testing. He later notified the ACLU because he was aware of the new law
requiring names reporting of people who test positive. The resident, who
prefers to remain anonymous, also alerted Dr. Jeffrey Klausner of the San
Francisco Department of Public Health. But, as of today, the City Clinic
website still says that the names of those testing positive for HIV will not be
turned over to the state.
“California law requires that people can only be
tested for HIV if they give their written informed consent, except under very
limited circumstances. This law recognizes that testing positive for HIV
remains a life-changing diagnosis, and that government and health care providers
have an obligation to ensure that anyone seeking an HIV test can make a fully
informed decision to be tested,” said Rose Saxe, a Staff Attorney with the ACLU
AIDS Project.
Saxe noted that in light of the new law requiring health care
providers and laboratories to report the names of individuals testing positive,
people should also be reminded that anonymous testing remains available in San
Francisco and throughout California. Under anonymous testing, names are
never reported to the state.
The letter sent by the ACLU to the Department of
Public Health demands that the department agree that it will immediately begin
to give people accurate information about HIV testing, and that it will not turn
over to the state the names of any HIV positive person who relied on the
guarantee of confidentiality in the City Clinic’s consent form.
The use of the inaccurate consent form by the City Clinic comes at a time
when public health officials around the country are pushing for more relaxed
informed consent rules. Earlier in the epidemic, public health officials
recognized that in order to build public trust it was important for people to
know that they were being tested and to understand the consequences of being
diagnosed with HIV and therefore required those being tested to sign a written
consent form. Some public health officials are now balking at the consent
forms claiming they are too time consuming.
“The
actions of City Clinic should serve as a wake up call to public health officials
on the importance of being honest with the public. You can’t expect people to
trust the government when the government proves that it isn’t to be
trusted. Safeguards, like requiring written informed consent, were put in
place to protect people. But as the City Clinic’s actions here illustrate
so clearly, those safeguards are still necessary to maintain the public trust
which is critical to getting people tested in the first place,” added
Lange.
A copy of the ACLU letter sent today and the
form used by the City Clinic on May 26 is available at: www.aclu.org/hivaids