Resource Logo Los Angeles Times  Another barrier to routine AIDS
testing falls   Another obstacle to routine screening for HIV is
about to fall, this time for the Department of Veterans Affairs,
the nation's largest provider of HIV care. You may recall that
in 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued
revised recommendations for testing adults, adolescents and
pregnant women for the virus that causes AIDS.  Aids2 The new
recommendations, while acknowledging that 38% to 44% of adults
in the U.S. have been tested for HIV, are aimed at the
approximately 25% of HIV-positive Americans who are unaware that
they harbor the virus. So -- in bureaucratic lingo -- the CDC
switched to an opt-out, rather than an opt-in, recommendation.
What that means to people who go to hospitals, emergency rooms,
clinics and other healthcare settings is that AIDS was to be
treated like any other disease when it came to testing.  AIDS
testing was to become more like Pap test screening for cervical
cancer, or blood press