Free mandatory STD testing?

munky99999 · Post by **munky99999** » 2006-07-05 12:14am

Lets think moreso small scale. Say for example just the province of Ontario, Canada.

I've been thinking recently if it would at all be practical to do a mandatory testing of std testing of everyone who is in ontario?

For example we do free flu shots and lots of other testing for free, for anyone who thinks they need testing.

I just don't know how much more resources that would be required beyond a simple flu shot.

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-05 09:44am

Free testing is a good idea, but making it manditory may cause practicle problems. Your'e bound to have a minority who kick up a fuss and say you are infringing their human rights. Especialy the religiose who will be insulted by this. After all, their faith is so pure that there is no posability of them geting an STD, and sugesting that they might is a grave insult to their morral lifestyle.

Apart from that I would say that whatever fiscal costs it would be more than worth it in the early detection and prevention of desiese. Especialy with things like Aids.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2006-07-05 10:02am

Mandatory tests for STD or other transmissable diseases would be fucking worthless above all because a result can become invalid the next day, you dimwit. What would you have the State do, repeat the tests every month?

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-05 11:26am

The troble with that argument is that it can be used against all health services. You're forgeting as well that although it could become invalid the next day it is unlikely to. Despite what you're seeming to sugest the majority of people dont tend to have sex with strangers ever few days.

I had a quick look on the net and found this survey. Personly Id conclude that a single bout of manditory testing would be most helpfull for those people who change partnerships least often (38% of the population). Because they don't change partners often the transmition rated are very slow and a greater proportion of that infected population will be identified without a high risk of re-infection.

For the people with the highest rate of partner change (15%) there would have to be a series of manditory tests/treatments, each successive one within the time limit of the average leangth of time between partners (IE every two months). IF that was done, however, there would be a destinct posability of whipeing out many of these STDs from the population entirely.

The main problem is then identifying which people are from which population type and targeting the frequency of testing accordingly, which sounds like a lagistical nightmare to me.

Link to PDF
Summery: study was calculated out of 1051 participents (88% of thoes intervewed) between 18 and 39 years old.
59% observed gaps between relationships of less than or equel to six months.
38% had five partners or fewer in their lifetines
15% had twenty partners or more in their lifetines
25% had had experienced at least one relationship overlaping another
The average gap between partnerships was 60.8 days
Apparently a lot of these people were from Seattle, if that helps.

So for the 85% of the population who have a low to average partner turnover it would not be invalid at all. It would not be a 100% success, but it would be a great help to many.

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2006-07-05 11:37am

The mandatory part of it is the part that would be hard to pull. A lot of people would consider it an invasion of their privacy. Personally, I think it'd be a useful tool to curbe the spread of STDs. You still have to take into account false-positives, though, and false-negatives.

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2006-07-05 12:16pm

Talanth wrote:The troble with that argument is that it can be used against all health services.

No, it can't. There's a reason the mandatory health services are essentially vaccines and checkup for genetical diseases in newborns. Name me an existing mandatory check up of an infectuous disease.

59% observed gaps between relationships of less than or equel to six months.
38% had five partners or fewer in their lifetines
15% had twenty partners or more in their lifetines
25% had had experienced at least one relationship overlaping another
The average gap between partners is was 60.8 days
Apparently a lot of these people were from Seattle, if that helps.

So for the 85% of the population who have a low to average partner turnover it would not be invalid at all. It would not be a 100% success, but it would be a great help to man.

From the numbers, all I conclude is that more than 60% of the population has more than 5 partners in their lives (which is perfectly reasonable if you're a normal, 30 years old yet to marry person), and 25% have cheated on their partner at least once. Your mandatory tests will be a logistical nightmare, and worthless unless you want to be draconian about the way you deal with people. Note that he's even talking about STD's in general, not only AIDS for example.

munky99999 · Post by **munky99999** » 2006-07-05 12:22pm

Like I know that flu shots arent mandatory as Ive been to the doctor and he pulled out the flu shot and i declined. Im very afraid of needles.

But from grade 10 history,which was forever long ago, i remember these small pox vaccination shots and i believe these were mandatory.

How about if we were to make it mandatory, but if you want to get out of it you have to communicate it to someone in the government or something.

Mandatory tests for STD or other transmissable diseases would be fucking worthless above all because a result can become invalid the next day, you dimwit. What would you have the State do, repeat the tests every month?

Well sure you're right. but what are the chances? I remember a test on daily planet that someone did, showing one partner being STD free and the other who has STDs. Using a condom, they dropped down transmission to less then 1/10

Not to mention that if everyone were to be tested, it would be on people's minds and they might ask for the other person's results before having sex.

The biggest part of this being that once people know they have an STD; they are criminally liable if they infect anyone else. Usually them being liable forces them to stay away from having sex. Which in turn stops the spread.

The people who spread STDs are the ones who don't know they have one. Mandatory testing would knock out a huge % of those people who don't know they have STDs.

As for the privacy thing, sure it's a little invasive, but only your doctor will have any clue of your results and you shouldn't have medical secrets from him anyway.

To also shine a little light, Canadian internet services might be ordered to release all privacy controls and report any information to the police. Which in turn is a huge!!! breach of privacy.

munky99999 · Post by **munky99999** » 2006-07-05 12:25pm

No, it can't. There's a reason the mandatory health services are essentially vaccines and checkup for genetical diseases in newborns. Name me an existing mandatory check up of an infectuous disease.

STDs can be the first, oh and i forgot to answer the frequency of check-ups. Well I'm really not sure, I don't have any medical background of any kind to base this on.

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-05 01:29pm

Colonel Olrik wrote:
Talanth wrote:The troble with that argument is that it can be used against all health services.
No, it can't. There's a reason the mandatory health services are essentially vaccines and checkup for genetical diseases in newborns. Name me an existing mandatory check up of an infectuous disease.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that very well. What I ment was that your argument could be used against most health survices in general (I was not considereing preventative measures, only detection and cure). For example one could say that there was no point in going to a doctor to be cured of a lung infection because there was a chance that you will catch the flu tomorow. Unfortunatly in this context (STDs) there are very few vaccinations available, so the main treatment that doctors can use is detection and treatment.

Colonel Olrik wrote: Your mandatory tests will be a logistical nightmare,

To quote myself:

The main problem is then identifying which people are from which population type and targeting the frequency of testing accordingly, which sounds like a lagistical nightmare to me.

So your point is?

Colonel Olrik wrote:...and worthless unless you want to be draconian about the way you deal with people. Note that he's even talking about STD's in general, not only AIDS for example.

I am honestly confused here. How can you posably think that testing will be worthless? Even if a moderate proportion of the infected population is cured it will lower the number of people in the next infection-generation who are infected with the desiese. How elce do you think treatment of eperdemics works? Doctors don't wave a magic wand, they take a proportion of the population, normaly the high-risc proportion, and test/cure thoes people first. This will lower the overall desiesed population and make the next wave of attack against the desiese easier.

If STDs were transmited quickley then I agree, a mass-detection would be inefective. The desiese would simply jump back to the cured population from the uncured population who had not yet been through the system: the desiese would quite litralt slip through the holes in the net. But with an infection rate as slow as STDs even a single mass detection would decimate the desiese-population. And infection rates are so slow that, asuming the mass treatment takes a matter of weeks and not months, there will not be the time for people just cured to suddenly swich partners and be re-infected.

munky99999 · Post by **munky99999** » 2006-07-05 06:31pm

I am honestly confused here. How can you posably think that testing will be worthless? Even if a moderate proportion of the infected population is cured it will lower the number of people in the next infection-generation who are infected with the desiese.

I argue that just informing the people they are infected with a STD would very much help stop the spread of the STD. Even if the STD is essentially uncurable.

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-06 09:02am

True for most cases. People find they have it and are suddenly very carefull. Unfortunatly it doesn't always work. We had a nutter 'round exeter at the start of the year who was caught deliberatly infecting people with AIDs. He'd decided to take revenge for his own infection by coating the tips of pins with his own blood and then sticking them on the sides of the slats on park benches... point up.

Rumor has it that about ten people were infected before they caught him.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-07-06 11:18am

According to the CDC in 2003-Seen Here- there were 877,478 cases of reported Chlamydia in the US in 2002-03. They estimate that 2.8 million cases happened due to people not reporting the desease.

335,104 reported and an estimated 718,000 cases of Gonorrhea in the same year, an all time low. And 7,177 cases of Syphilis, just rising from an all time low in 2000.

Added together, that's just over 1% of the population that you want to find via forced testing. At it's heigth, according to the CDC, 19 million cases of STD's occur annualy. That's still in the neighborhood of 6% of the population that your hunting for with forced testing.

Interestingly enough too;

Drug Resistance Growing

Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly important concern in the treatment and prevention of gonorrhea, particularly for MSM.4 Overall, 4.1 percent of gonorrhea isolates tested through CDC’s Gonococcal Isolate Surveillance Project demonstrated resistance to fluoroquinolones, compared to 2.2 percent in 2002 and 0.7 percent in 2001. Among MSM, 15 percent of reported gonorrhea isolates were resistant to these antibiotics.

In April 2004, CDC recommended that fluoroquinolones no longer be used as treatment for gonorrhea in MSM. In addition, in California and Hawaii, where resistant cases have been widespread for several years, and in Washington, where resistant cases have appeared more recently, fluoroquinolones are no longer recommended to treat any cases of gonorrhea. The currently available antibiotics recommended by CDC for treatment of fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea are expensive and must be administered by injection, instead of taken orally.

The costs that were just very high, just got higher with espensive new meds against gonorrhea.

All and all, free testing would be something to look at, but forcing all of the population into lines for testing will be a nightmare and only to find ~6% of the suspected population of STD carriers.

munky99999 · Post by **munky99999** » 2006-07-06 02:50pm

All and all, free testing would be something to look at, but forcing all of the population into lines for testing will be a nightmare and only to find ~6% of the suspected population of STD carriers.

Well in Ontario, Canada the testing is already free and readily available. I am simply proposing forced testing of all people above the age of consent, provided that some people will be opposed to this and they can call to get out of it on certain basis. Doing this will find a good amount of people who are infected and simply don't know. Based on this most people who have been diagnosed will be very careful. Sure there will be idiots who want to be put in jail and will cause trouble. But I find that it could stop the spread significantly enough to warrant the use of mandatory testing.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-07-06 03:06pm

munky99999 wrote:. But I find that it could stop the spread significantly enough to warrant the use of mandatory testing.

And to boil my question down, why? For 6% of the population, you want to trouble 94%. What makes it worth it for such a small portion?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-07-06 03:20pm

Aren't some of the STD tests rather unpleasant?

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2006-07-06 03:40pm

Uraniun235 wrote:Aren't some of the STD tests rather unpleasant?

I beleive one of them involves sticking a swab down the end of your dick and scraping stuff of the inside.

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-06 04:03pm

Knife wrote:And to boil my question down, why? For 6% of the population, you want to trouble 94%. What makes it worth it for such a small portion?

Thats about one in every 16 people, and from what you say thoes are only the ones who are infected at the moment. Over their lifetimes I think the majority of people will have an STD at one time or another. You talk about inconveniance, but these infected people will be inconvenienced anyway by having to go to the doctor after they have caughtt the STD and have the symptoms. It now becomes only the minority who are 'inconvenianced' where they would not have otherwise have been (I have looked for facts to quote about the proportion of the population who will ever get an STD, but cant seem to find any facts. If anyone can quote a site I would be gratefull). If this is the case then I would consider it a small price to pay for an increase in the overall health of the population.

I think the method they've ocasionly used is to test a random sample of the population and then track down all of the partners of thoes they found to be infected, and if they are/have been infected to track down all of their partners. I can't find any studdys of this method but I have heard that its very efective at tracking down and burning up the web of infection.

P.S. After a quick google: Random web-page

One in five Americans age 12 and older has a STD.

The figures seem to be uncertain but there is no doubt in my mind that the situation is seriouse. And no-matter what the fiscal costs or the protests against it, in my mind a round of forced testing will decimate the desiese population. By that fact alone, and the upshot that fewer people will be infected in the next desiese-generation, the merits of manditory testing far outweigh any inconvenience it will cause.

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-06 04:06pm

Cpl Kendall wrote:I beleive one of them involves sticking a swab down the end of your dick and scraping stuff of the inside.

Not just for blokes either. At least your hole is slightly larger. :yuch:

munky99999 · Post by **munky99999** » 2006-07-06 05:16pm

And to boil my question down, why? For 6% of the population, you want to trouble 94%. What makes it worth it for such a small portion?

Well that is for USA. For Canada it's only 3-4% so it's rather much more strict.

Anyone below age 14 wouldnt be checked. Anyone above age X, 30-40 or something probably not at as much risk. Then you can cut out anyone who's a virgin. Which I've read reports that it can be up to 1/3 of that range that are virgins. Alot of those people who are virgins until marriage are actually true to themselves.

So the mandatory range could be specific to more high-risk groups.

I'm one of those people who think that doing this to save 100 people total from getting any STD. Is a pretty good reason to do it. I might be "troubling" 95-96% of the population, but if the results of saving 5-6%, of that same 95-96%, from STDs. Those people should be pretty damn happy.

Uraniun235 wrote:
Aren't some of the STD tests rather unpleasant?
I beleive one of them involves sticking a swab down the end of your dick and scraping stuff of the inside.

Ewww! well ill be honest, i know nothing of any procedures in STD testing.

Post by **Edi** » 2006-07-06 05:23pm

Ahh, more trolling from the dipshit. Thankfully, he'll soon be banned.

Meanwhile, try to fucking look up something on the topics you're posting. The only preventive measure against STDs is using vaccination to inoculate people against the ones where it works. Olrik explained quite well why that is. Now, evidence for how and why the mandatory testing at regular intervals would be worth the time, cost and aggravation it would take to set such an intrusive and pointless system up.

Edi

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2006-07-06 09:40pm

Talanth wrote: Thats about one in every 16 people, and from what you say thoes are only the ones who are infected at the moment. Over their lifetimes I think the majority of people will have an STD at one time or another. You talk about inconveniance, but these infected people will be

You can quibble all you want, at any given point in time, according to the USA's 2003 stat's, 6 out of 100 people have an STD. That is based on the estimates of unreported STD's. Actual reported STD's are much lower.

Over their life time, if the stats stay consistent, 6 out of 100 people will have them. You want to line up those hundred people to root out the 6. Exactly why should those other 94 people stand in a line for forced screening just so you feel better about yourself for treating those 6. Why should we pay for those 94 people to get screened just to get the 6?

You're side stepping these questions, and I've yet to see the stagering statistics of those people who, out of the 6 per 100, don't know and either die or go on to infect large scopes of others.

Show why something along the lines of free clinics with free screenings or straight up free condoms and the such would be more expensive and less effective?

inconvenienced anyway by having to go to the doctor after they have caughtt the STD and have the symptoms. It now becomes only the minority who are 'inconvenianced' where they would not have otherwise have been (I have looked for facts to quote about the proportion of the population who will ever get an STD, but cant seem to find any facts. If anyone can quote a site I would be gratefull). If this is the case then I would consider it a small price to pay for an increase in the overall health of the population.

I think the method they've ocasionly used is to test a random sample of the population and then track down all of the partners of thoes they found to be infected, and if they are/have been infected to track down all of their partners. I can't find any studdys of this method but I have heard that its very efective at tracking down and burning up the web of infection.

P.S. After a quick google: Random web-page
One in five Americans age 12 and older has a STD.
The figures seem to be uncertain but there is no doubt in my mind that the situation is seriouse. And no-matter what the fiscal costs or the protests against it, in my mind a round of forced testing will decimate the desiese population. By that fact alone, and the upshot that fewer people will be infected in the next desiese-generation, the merits of manditory testing far outweigh any inconvenience it will cause.

You haven't proved it though, why should the people jump through the hoops for such a small percentage? Would not another solution, condoms, sex ed, ect be more effective and less expensive?

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2006-07-07 04:47am

I'm not continuing this, since Knife has explained the situation quite well, but this:

Talanth wrote:
Knife wrote:And to boil my question down, why? For 6% of the population, you want to trouble 94%. What makes it worth it for such a small portion?
Thats about one in every 16 people

is priceless.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2006-07-07 07:01am

The biggest problem with this is that people would squawk about it; I know I would, and I have no STDs: I'm a virgin. But there's also the issue that this isn't an epidemic that is going to sweep like wildfire through any population that is a) educated, or b) conservative. Those who are educated know to take precautions: wear condoms, insist that your partner is tested, only sleep with one partner. Those who are conservative will tend to stick with one partner, limiting the spread of any potential disease to exactly one other. STDs aren't just something that will be spread by air or normal daily contact. There has to be a specific set of actions to spread them, and that's not something large swaths of the population are going to be exposed to, for various reasons. Now, if someone wants to insist that every partner of theirs is tested, that's one thing. But I know that I would not go and get tested if it became mandatory tomorrow, and (in America at least) there are thousands, probably hundreds of thousands who wouldn't as well.

WyrdNyrd · Post by **WyrdNyrd** » 2006-07-07 07:23am

Conservatives are more monogamous than anyone else? Methinks you're confusing conservative beliefs with conservative actions.

Talanth · Post by **Talanth** » 2006-07-07 11:41am

Knife wrote:
Talanth wrote: Thats about one in every 16 people, and from what you say thoes are only the ones who are infected at the moment. Over their lifetimes I think the majority of people will have an STD at one time or another. You talk about inconveniance, but these infected people will be
You can quibble all you want, at any given point in time, according to the USA's 2003 stat's, 6 out of 100 people have an STD. That is based on the estimates of unreported STD's. Actual reported STD's are much lower.

I don't understand, how is that a quible? "~1 in 16" = "6%" Admitedly its nearer 1 in 16.5 but I just find ~1 in 16 easier to visualise.

Knife wrote:Over their life time, if the stats stay consistent, 6 out of 100 people will have them. You want to line up those hundred people to root out the 6. Exactly why should those other 94 people stand in a line for forced screening just so you feel better about yourself for treating those 6. Why should we pay for those 94 people to get screened just to get the 6?

Er, firstly I've already sugetsed a way where you could test fewer than a hundred percent of the population and still track down a large percentage of the infected population. And secondly Ive already said that the reason I think that uninfected people should stand in line because it lowers the odds of them becoming infected in the future, because in my personal opinion an increace in the health of the overall population is benificial to the population as a whole. But prehaps that point of vew is just an upshot of living in a welfare state.

I hope this fully answers your questions.

Knife wrote:You're side stepping these questions, and I've yet to see the stagering statistics of those people who, out of the 6 per 100, don't know and either die or go on to infect large scopes of others.

I haven't got any stagering statistics. I agree that the only way the debate can be settled is by a scientific studdy, but I've looked online for a publicly available studdy and couldn't find one. If you have information available to you that I don't then please share, but untill we can see such a studdy all we can do is state our on opinions and own points of vew. I'm sorry if that insults you.

Knife wrote:Show why something along the lines of free clinics with free screenings or straight up free condoms and the such would be more expensive and less effective?

I don't understand where this has come from. I thought we were talking about the benafits and drawbacks of manditory testing.

And as for the aligation of trolling: I have posted in responce to direct questions. I have posted with my honest opinion and I have always atempted to provide facts and evidence to back up my opinion. I now ask: what elce can I do? and how is this breaking any of the forum rules? I apologise if I have broken any of the rules, but I have then please tell me so I can change the way I post.