I Will Now Assume That Everyone Who Leaves Walgreens Crying Has AIDS

Rob Fox13 years ago

A new project from the Center for Disease Control hopes to make HIV testing as routine as getting one’s blood pressure checked by supplying local pharmacies with HIV/AIDS tests. From TheRoot.com:

In advance of National HIV Testing Day (June 27), on Tuesday CDC officials announced a two-year pilot that will roll out in 24 rural and urban stores, located in areas with high rates of HIV infection, where staff is being trained to deliver confidential rapid HIV testing on-site. The program is already under way at two Walgreens stores in Washington, D.C., and Chicago; a BioScrip pharmacy in Lithonia, Ga.; and community-based pharmacies and retail clinics in Riverdale, Md.; Oakland, Calif.; and Billings, Mont. The project’s remaining locations are scheduled to be ready by the end of summer.

This is probably a good idea in the grand scheme of things, if only because it makes it easier for low income people to get tested, but you can personally count me out. Call me old fashioned but if I ever found out I had HIV I’d prefer not to hear that terrible news in a place that sells pizza rolls and super soakers, although admittedly picking up an ice cream Snickers bar on the way out would soften the blow.

• [via The Root]