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Considerations for Modernized Criminal HIV Laws and Assessment of Legal Protections Against Release of Identified HIV Surveillance Data for Law Enforcement. Am J Public Health 2019 Nov;109(11):1576-1579

Date

09/20/2019

Pubmed ID

31536402

Pubmed Central ID

PMC6775912

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2019.305284

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85072905130 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   6 Citations

Abstract

In November 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributed guidance to funded agencies under its Integrated HIV Surveillance and Prevention Programs Initiative to support the implementation of the program's third strategy: HIV transmission cluster investigation and outbreak response efforts. Cluster detection seeks to identify persons infected with HIV (diagnosed and undiagnosed) who are linked to infections in single or related sexual and injection drug networks. Identifying expanding clusters allows public health personnel to intervene directly where active HIV transmissions occur.However, in the context of HIV infection where most US states have enacted criminal exposure laws, these efforts have sparked concerns about the protection of HIV surveillance data from court order or subpoena for law enforcement purposes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls for funded agencies to evaluate relevant confidentiality laws to ensure that these are sufficient to protect the confidentiality of HIV surveillance data from use by law enforcement.We present four often overlooked factors about the criminalization of HIV exposure and HIV surveillance data protections that should be considered in statutory assessments.

Author List

Galletly CL, Benbow N, Killelea A, Lazzarini Z, Edwards R

Author

Carol L. Galletly JD, PhD Associate Professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine department at Medical College of Wisconsin




MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Confidentiality
Contact Tracing
Criminal Law
HIV Infections
Humans
Law Enforcement
Politics
United States