[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 1, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2053-E2054]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE RIGHT TO KNOW ACT OF 2000

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TOM A. COBURN

                              of oklahoma

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 1, 2000

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, a young woman visits a health clinic. She 
consults with a nurse, undergoes a series of tests and exams and then 
is sent home with a clean bill of health. She is not, however, 
perfectly healthy. She is infected with HIV. The clinic tested her, 
without her knowledge, and never told her the results. Because she was 
never told, she has been denied medical treatment that would have kept 
her healthy. Because she is never told, she unknowingly places others 
at risk for contracting the disease, including her husband and 
children. And because she is never told, her life is prematurely cut 
short and she dies from AIDS.
  At 51 clinics across the country, the federal Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC) is financing such a project. As a 
practicing physician, I find this to be highly unethical and appalling. 
In essence, government scientists have reduced men and women to 
bacteria in a Petri dish, disposal subjects for experimentation.
  Because the CDC has failed to properly monitor the HIV epidemic with 
the same reliable reporting system used to track every other disease, 
the agency implemented these so called serosurveillance, or ``blind'', 
studies to determine the size and demographics of the HIV/AIDS 
epidemic.
  The director of research at the Pediatric AIDS Foundation in 
California, Arthur Amman, has compared the CDC's blind testing to the 
notorious Tuskegee study that followed 400 black Alabama sharecroppers 
infected with syphilis in order to observe the disease's progression. 
Begun in the early 1930s, the Tuskegee `experiment' financed by the 
Public Health Service, continued until 1972 despite the fact that 
treatment became available in the 1940s.
  Likewise, the CDC's `blind' HIV testing began in the 1980s and 
continues today even though medical treatment for HIV is now available.
  Of those found to be HIV-positive through these government funded 
tests, up to 90 percent did not themselves receive an HIV test at some 
clinics according to the CDC's own data. That means at these locations, 
nine out of ten individuals that the CDC diagnosed as infected, were 
never told they are infected with a terminal and contagiouis disease.
  The CDC rationalizes these `bline' tests by conducting the surveys in 
facilities which offer counseling and voluntary HIV testing to all 
patients. Regardless of whether testing is or is not otherwise 
available, it is criminal that anyone diagnosed with a life 
threatening, contagious disease is not told and is instead allowed to 
die and infect others. It is even more despicable that those charged 
with protecting the public's health are running this program.
  The Right to Know Act will prohibit the CDC, or any other federal 
agency, from conducting or supporting such an unethical practice. It 
will

[[Page E2054]]

require that whenever an HIV test is conducted using federal funds that 
every reasonable effort is made to find and disclose to the tested 
individuals the results, together with appropriate counseling. Never 
again should anyone ever be denied the knowledge of an HIV diagnosis or 
the medical care that can save their lives.
  I am hopeful that Congress in the remainder of the 106th Congress 
will include this life saving proposal in an appropriate legislative 
vehicle headed to the President's desk.

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