Mandated life versus mandatory death: New York's disgraceful partner notification record

In New York City in 1993, there were some 18,000 positive HIV tests but only 350 partner notifications completed by the New York City Health Department. The bleak disparity between these two numbers should haunt us all. We will never know for certain how many lives could have been saved by universally available notification services, but looking at the results of current, obstructive New York State notification law and policy, we have to know we are facing an enormous public health failure. In states and cities with well-established notification programs, between 50 and 90% of HIV-positive clients cooperate voluntarily with notification and, typically, 90% of partners contacted seek HIV-testing and preventive counseling. There are no differences in cooperation based on race, gender or sexual orientation. In New York, urgently required reform means legislation to mandate that notification services are offered to all people who test positive and to require the state to supply enough trained personnel to undertake sensitive notification and counselling. With Black and Latina women--most of whom are mothers--now at the highest risk for sexual HIV infection, New York's refusal to undertake the life-saving policies common elsewhere has not only resulted in a horrible abandonment of a very vulnerable population, but also accelerated the orphaning of children at unprecedented rates.