February 2001
The State Office of AIDS, which provides funding and guidelines for the Berkeley Free Clinic's HIV Prevention Services has recently made changes to the form we use to collect risk assessment information on our clients. The new form, called HIV5 (because it is the 5th one since the state started offering testing), now asks our clients to reveal their date of birth and first letter of the last name.
Their new guidelines state that this information will be merged with other state databases.
The HPS feels very strongly that this violates the concept of "anonymity", and would allow the state to track individual clients and to figure out who they are.
The historical context in which this emerges is one of discrimination and reprisals against people with HIV/AIDS.
Anonymous testing came about in the late 1980's as a safe way for people to learn about their risks and status while protecting their privacy from the insurance industry, employers, landlords, and others who could discriminate against them for testing positive or for engaging in high risk behavior.
At the HIV Prevention Service's January business meeting we passed a motion to formerly protest the state's collection of this data and to tell our clients that they could decline to answer those questions.
On Sunday, February 4th, the HPS Steering Committee, an advisory body within the section, committed itself to mobilizing an effort to protest the changes to the new form (HIV5), which ask for the date of birth and first letter of the last name of each thereby compromising the anonymity of our clients.
A brief outline of our plan is as follows:
There is an overwhelming amount of work that must be done in the very near future. Please let us know what days you can come in, make phone calls, fax letters, or otherwise volunteer your time.
Thank you.
-STOP HIV5 Committee.