Quote of note:
Dr. Fred Valentine, director of the AIDS research center at New York University, who is also pushing the city to switch, said, "In the best of all worlds, you'd test everybody both ways," but that would require pouring much more money into testing.
H.I.V. Tests Pose Choice of Breakthroughs
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
For almost two decades, H.I.V. tests had two glaring flaws. They did not detect the earliest stage of infection, when people are more likely to spread the virus. And they took days to produce results, and many people never returned to learn whether they were infected.
Now, technology has put public health officials in a quandary: which problem to address. New generations of tests can largely eliminate either the long waiting time for results, or the failure to find early infections. But the choice is pulling H.I.V. specialists in competing directions, in New York City and nationally. Experts on both sides of the debate would like to see both types of tests used, but say that expense and logistics make that impractical.
Some health agencies, including those in New York City and New York State, have embraced quick tests that produce preliminary results in minutes, rather than days. North Carolina and San Francisco have gone another way, adopting tests that catch many early infections with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, that other tests miss.
A group of prominent H.I.V. doctors and researchers in New York City say North Carolina and San Francisco made the right call, and they are urging the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to change directions.
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