Compulsory Prenatal Hiv Testing Essay, Research Paper
A. Drumhead This peculiar diary researches antenatal HIV testing as it relates
to perpendicular transmittal.
1. Randomized controlled surveies affecting HIV- positive pregnant adult females at assorted phases of gestation were monitored and evaluated in an attempt to happen conclusive logical thinking for antenatal testing. Women of different income degrees, educational and cultural backgrounds were involved in these surveies.
2. The AIDS Clinical Trials Group Study 076 every bit good as following
randomized controlled tests were used in order to prove whether antenatal testing was an effectual agencies of forestalling the perpendicular transmittal of the HIV virus. Quick and comparatively simple trials were performed in order to first find whether pregnant female parents were HIV- positive. If the female parent so tested seropositive, antiretroviral therapy was begun in an attempt to cut down the perinatal transmittal of the virus. Randomized tests performed in developing states besides tested whether early sensing followed by antiretroviral therapy greatly reduced viral transmittal.
3. The ACTG 076 showed that in instances affecting antenatal HIV testing,
where the virus was discovered in the earlier phases of gestation, that intervention could take down the opportunity of transmittal from 25 % to 8 % . Furthermore, since these findings were released along with the recommendation that antenatal proving be compulsory for all pregnant adult females the instances of perinatally transmitted AIDS reported in the United States have been cut in half.
B. Critique AIDS Clinical Trials Group Study 076 produced grounds that
compulsory antenatal testing would be effectual, but it is plausible that the survey itself could hold been more effectual.
1. The surveies performed were statistically sound and lead to apparently
important consequences. Randomized and controlled surveies were performed later in an attempt to guarantee utile consequences. Statistically, these methods of research produce findings that are typically more accurate than the other assorted attacks to research.
Similarly, the HIV trial itself is fundamentally a simple and for the most portion accurate agencies of finding whether a pregnant female parent is HIV- positive. The trials were administered to female parents that had already tested positive in order to farther guarantee the truth of the survey. In this manner, it appears that much clip and attempt was put away in order to happen conclusive concluding either turn outing or confuting the theory that antenatal HIV testing should be compulsory.
On the other manus, in order to develop policies that would do antenatal testing mandatary there are two sides to see ; pregnant adult females who are HIV- positive and pregnant adult females who do non transport the virus. In this manner, the survey lacks in including adult females who must be tested for apparently no ground. It fails to advert if any undue adversities must be placed upon adult females who are HIV- negative.
2. Because HIV can be a treatable disease the findings from this survey are as
most would anticipate them to be. Early sensing leads to an increased likeliness of forestalling the viral transmittal of the disease. The findings themselves are rather impressive besides. If at anytime the spread of a disease can be decreased by about 50 % every bit long as it is detected and treated in a timely manner, so it is easy to presume that those steps would be widely accepted.
However, for some it is an issue of privateness or civil rights. For others they may avoid prenatal ca
rhenium because they fear HIV proving or resent the compulsory policy. These adult females would lose the chance to have benefit from antiretroviral therapy if they were infected, and, more of import, they would lose the benefit of antenatal attention regardless of whether they were infected with HIV. Mandatory proving might discourage the adult females who are the most likely to be infected with HIV from having antenatal attention. Furthermore, because the odds of the babe really being born with AIDS are sometimes low, some female parents do non believe it is worth the play if the babe may be born seronegative.
Issues affecting gestation are continually made more complicated because of opposing positions on the determinations made sing the babe & # 8217 ; s wellness. Many uneducated female parents do non recognize or to the full understand the effects of their determinations on the babe & # 8217 ; s support. These same female parents besides feel that they, non their physicians should do those determinations because after all, it is their babe.
C. Argue Before composing this paper I had an thought of what my feelings on the issue were, but I attempted to get down it without prejudice. As the paper progressed it merely reaffirmed my original stance, that antenatal HIV testing should be compulsory.
Womans, concerned about the wellness of their kids, will non be opposed to compulsory HIV testing and care given appropriate guidance and instruction. There is about no statement that a female parent of all time should put on the line the life of her kid because she believes a simple ten-minute trial is somewhat unfair or unjust or that she is being inconvenienced. Her kid & # 8217 ; s wellness should ever come before things of that nature. Besides, the trials are ever in the best involvement of the kid, it is non as if they are meant to estrange or be troublesome to the female parent.
Furthermore, compulsory proving for AIDS identifies pregnant adult females who are incognizant they are transporting the disease. Evidence that early sensing reduces the opportunities for transmittal are conclusive in about every survey on the affair. Therefore adult females should be offered HIV-testing anterior to or early in gestation so that they can do determinations sing their ain wellness every bit good as determinations about reproduction. Besides, after an HIV trial has been performed on a pregnant female parent there is merely a limited window of clip where antiretroviral therapy will turn out most effectual. Bercause of this, if testing was voluntary a female parent may set if away until it has already become excessively late to be effectual. Along those lines, if merely one kid in a million can be saved from undertaking AIDS because of a female parent who wouldn & # 8217 ; t usually have been tested was forced to, it seems as if it was all still worth it.
Transmission of HIV from a female parent to her baby is the taking cause of HIV infection in kids. Prenatal proving offers a better chance to forestall the spread of HIV infection from female parent to child than testing performed after the babe is born. This is because babes born to HIV- positive female parents who are treated prenatally and during bringing have an estimated 8 % opportunity of undertaking the virus. A babe treated after bringing may profit from the drug, but will probably stay septic.
Although the positives of compulsory proving appear rather apparent in this diary, the benefits of compulsory HIV testing must be significant and must be continually demonstrated before such a policy is implemented. The effects must be considered and studied at great length in order to find whether what I see as a good thought truly is. After all, we are doing a determination on behalf of an unborn kid, a determination that could deeply impact their full life.
