Sunday, June 27th marks the 16th annual National HIV Testing Day, but this year, D.C.'s Whitman-Walker Clinic will be celebrating the occasion all week long. The extra effort is necessary in a town like D.C., where 3 to 5 percent of the population is estimated to have HIV. "Everyone should know their HIV status for themselves and their partners and their families," Dr. Raymond Martins, the clinic's chief medical officer, said in a statement. "[But] this year, we want to encourage people to not just get tested themselves but to pass along the message of HIV testing and prevention to those around them. Talking about this epidemic is one of the best tools we have to fight it."

Starting tomorrow, the clinic will offer free walk-in rapid testing in spots around the city. The test takes about 20 minutes; schedule is after the jump.

Friday, June 25:

· Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, and Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

· Greater Baden Medical Services, 5001 Silver Hill Rd., 2nd Floor, Suitland, Maryland, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

Saturday, June 26:

· Benning Neighborhood Library, 3935 Benning Rd., NE, 11:00 am-3:00 pm.

· Giant, 1050 Brentwood Rd, NE, 11:00 am-5:00 pm.

Sunday, June 27:

· “God’s People are Getting Tested” Initiative, Christ Lutheran Church, 16th & Gallatin Streets, NW, 12:00-3:00 pm.

· MLK Memorial Library, 901 G St., NW, 1:00-4:00 pm

Monday, June 28:

· Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, 9:00 am-7:00 pm, and Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

· Greater Baden Medical Services, 3028 Brightseat Rd., Glenarden, Maryland, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

Tuesday, June 29:

· Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, and Max Robinson Center, 2301 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.

· Greater Baden Medical Services, 3028 Brightseat Rd., Glenarden, Maryland, 10:00 am-3:00 pm.

· Gay Men’s Health & Wellness/STD Clinic, Elizabeth Taylor Medical Center, 1701 14th St., NW, 6:00 pm.

Photo via Trygve.u, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

the tests are administered by taking groups of 15 to 20 students at a time to the restroom area. The students are given paper bags containing urine collection cups and enter bathroom stalls. Once they get in the stalls, they can choose whether or not to provide urine samples. All the students return the paper bags, so other students do not necessarily know who did or did not provide a sample. Students provide a password and then call in a week later to get their result and treatment, if necessary.

That's the good news. The bad news is that last year, a pilot program found that 13 percent of D.C. public school students tested positive for STDs ("mostly gonorrhea or chlamydia").

The really bad news? Even though "all 50 states and the District allow minors older than 12 to be screened for STDs without parental consent," some educators are
still against this initiative. The rationale? Think of the Parents:

[State Board of Education rep William Lockridge] said parents need to be involved. "Right now, if you play sports in a public school, you have to get permission from your parents. If you take a field trip, you have to get permission from your parents. Why would it be any less for this? . . . Only if the parent gives the consent upfront would I do this."

Please: Do not bring Mom and Dad into this. Under the current anonymous-paper-bag method, where kids all pile into the bathroom and either do or do not pee into the cup, about 68 percent of students elect to submit to a urine test. It's not the most private ceremony in the world. But if we were to add in an extra Parental Signature step to the ordeal, I wonder how many kids would choose not to piss?

When parents have to sign teens up for the pissing trip, they'll know when their teens are being tested—and when to badger them for the results. Teens—duh—will feel a lot less confident that their test results will remain confidential. D.C.'s teens deserve STD testing, and they deserve it to remain private. Even if they're surrounded by 20 of their fellow students in the process.

Yesterday, I wrote a post calling out Black Informant, a blogger who called out homosexuals for the striking new HIV/AIDS numbers in the District. The blogger then proceeded to call me out, in a post titled “Calling Amanda Hess of the Washington City Paper.” Black Informant wanted to debate. Well, here we go!

I take issue with two main assertions in Black Informant's response to the new AIDS numbers. First, that the "leading cause for this HIV/AIDS jump" in D.C. was due to high-risk homosexual activity. And second, that stepping up HIV/AIDS education efforts in the District would be both fruitless and condescending, because "folks know EXACTLY how this is caused, yet they consistently choose to do the wrong thing." That "wrong thing" goes back to Black Informant's number one—gay sex.

I disagree.

From 2006 to 2008, the number of known HIV/AIDS cases in D.C. increased by 22 percent. Three percent of the District's population is now known to be infected with HIV. But the "jump" can't be attributed to D.C.'s gay community, as Black Informant states. The study notes that "Heterosexual sexual contact is quickly becoming the leading mode of transmission among all HIV/AIDS cases, already surpassing MSM among newly diagnosed AIDS cases."

That means that over the past two years, the majority of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in D.C.—the "jump" we're referring to—were a result of heterosexual contact. Not. Gay. Sex. (Check page 57 of this PDF for those figures).

If it's not the gays, then what's responsible for the jump? Another foe of Black Informant—education. HIV/AIDS infections haven't increased 22 percent in two years—infections we know about have increased. That means:

a. People are getting tested more. Three-fifths of D.C. residents knew their HIV status in 2008. Testing efforts have significantly increased since 2006, the first time the District released a full report on its HIV status. "In mid-2006, the District became the first city in the country to implement a policy of routine HIV testing, and implemented a series of measures to encourage residents to get tested and providers to normalize HIV testing as part of routine care," the study states.

b. People are getting tested earlier. A person's CD4 count is a good indicator of how far along a patient's immunodeficiency has progressed—the more CD4 you have, the better. Only 18 months after D.C. stepped up its HIV testing program in 2005, the study found that "the median first CD4 count had risen to 332, a 50 percent increase in CD4 counts since 2005." That means that more people are getting tested for HIV/AIDS while they're still healthy, before they have signs of a secondary illness indicating an immunodeficiency (a CD4 count below 200 indicates a patient has full-blown AIDS).

c. Patients are living longer. The earlier a person tests positive for HIV, the less likely they are to spread the virus to another person. But early testing helps out the positive person, too: early testing and diagnosis gives those infected with HIV a much higher chance of survival. That's why 40 to 49-year-olds make up the largest HIV/AIDS population in the District, at 7.2 percent. The longer an HIV-positive patient lives, the higher the rate of HIV will be in the District of Columbia.

The 22 percent jump in HIV/AIDS cases is due to increased testing initiatives and medical advancements in fighting the virus. Not. Gay. Sex.

But the District of Columbia can't make people get tested for HIV. To what can we attribute the increase in testing? First of all, making HIV tests easy, accessible, and free, as they are at D.C.'s Whitman Walker Clinics. Second, normalizing the testing process through education. If D.C. residents think—like Black Informant does—that AIDS is a disease for homosexuals and sexual deviants, they're less likely to be tested, and they're more likely to pass the virus on to their partners. Continuing to spread the falsehood that HIV is a gay disease is dangerous to all residents of Washington who may be at risk.

There's an advantage to the high visibility of HIV/AIDS in the gay community—gay activists have been mobilizing since the 1980's for gay men to be tested regularly for HIV. But the visibility has also hurt other at-risk populations who think that their own behavior is "normal" enough not to subject them to the "gay" disease. Now that the rest of Washington D.C. has been proven to be as at-risk as the gay community, hiding behind homophobia will only impede our efforts to make everyone—gay and straight—healthy and safe.

Okay, Black Informant. It's your turn.