AIDS Risk to U.S. Employees Raised as Government Ignores Policy

The U.S. government is ignoring its own guidelines for HIV screening, putting more than 15 million people covered by federal health-care plans at risk of unwittingly carrying and spreading the deadly virus.

In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for routine testing of all teen and adult Americans up to age 65 to find 250,000 people who might be unaware they're infected. Payment for such screening, though, isn't offered under the health plan for 8.5 million federal employees or Medicare, which covers 7.1 million disabled people under age 65.

Ignoring the guidelines allows HIV to spread and keeps those infected from early diagnosis and therapy, which can extend the lives of HIV patients, said Bernard Branson, a CDC testing expert. Activists set to attend next week's international AIDS meeting are awaiting new government data that they say may show a 50 percent rise in annual U.S. infections.