US policy shift on Aids drugs use

[Keevan_Colton]

The US health authorities have recommended that wider use should be made in the US of anti-retroviral drugs to help prevent the spread of Aids.

New guidelines say that people exposed to the Aids virus by rape, drug use or unsafe sex should receive treatment.

The drugs can prevent people becoming infected if it starts within 72 hours of people's exposure to the virus.

The guidelines, developed by the Centers for Disease Control, represent a major policy shift by the US.

Previous recommendations, introduced in 1996, said that only health care workers who might have been exposed to HIV were to receive anti-retroviral drugs.

American doctors described that policy as unconscionable, saying it was ludicrous that the US did not allow rape victims to receive the treatment - something several other countries do allow.

Trials on animals as well as victims of rape have shown that taking a drug combination shortly after possible exposure does prevent infection.

A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control said the severity of the HIV epidemic in the US - where 40,000 new cases are reported each year - meant that all available tools were needed to reduce transmission rates.

The government will not, however, pay for the drugs to be administered over the 28-day course of treatment.

BBC

[salm]

what was their reasoning for not giving the drugs out to all people?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I wouldn't be surprised if some Republican thought it would encourage promiscuous, unprotected sex.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This is a very very good thing. If we can keep the virus from becoming established in someone's system....

[Pick]

what was their reasoning for not giving the drugs out to all people?

I thought exactly the same thing... Heck, though, I didn't even know this existed for that small minority. *stupid*

[Thinkmarble]

The government will not, however, pay for the drugs to be administered over the 28-day course of treatment.

Mhm.
Four questions:
Does anybody know if private health insurrance will pay ?
What is the percentage of people with private insurrance ?
Isn´t this from an economical POV pure stupidity ?
Isn´t this immoral ?

[Keevan_Colton]

Does anybody know if private health insurrance will pay ?
What is the percentage of people with private insurrance ?
Isn´t this from an economical POV pure stupidity ?
Isn´t this immoral ?

You appear to have answered your first question with your third.
Private insurance kicks up enough bloody problems paying for anything, and if there's a 72 hour window to start you can bet they'll make sure and hold things up till it doesnt matter anymore.
There is no profit in actually helping people, that's one of the more moral parts of private health insurance.

[Coyote]

...And it's hard enough to get people to report and get treatment for rapes.

[RedImperator]

The government will not, however, pay for the drugs to be administered over the 28-day course of treatment.

Mhm.
Four questions:
Does anybody know if private health insurrance will pay ?
What is the percentage of people with private insurrance ?
Isn´t this from an economical POV pure stupidity ?
Isn´t this immoral ?

It's shortsighted and idiotic, even from a pure heartless capitalist point of view. The economic and social costs of the AIDS epidemic are much higher than paying for preventative treatment. Controlling an epidemic is EXACTLY what government is for.