Does testing come at the expense of prevention? (HIV/AIDS).

Since the early days of the AIDS epidemic, HIV testing has been a critical way to encourage people at high risk to determine their status. But some AIDS activists fear a new push for widespread testing could be coming at the expense of even more critical prevention measures.

Citing an upswing in new HIV infections, federal health officials announced April 17 that they would encourage far more comprehensive and routine screening of intravenous-drug users, pregnant women, and anyone who has engaged in unprotected sex.

"This is an intolerable situation," said Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Tragically, [many people with HIV] have not had the opportunity to benefit from the potentially lifesaving treatments we now have available." The new policy, Gerberding said, was made possible in part by new HIV screening innovations that allow for results within 20 minutes of testing.

Conservatives hailed the CDC announcement. "For too long, the CDC's policies have protected the virus rather than the public," said Tom Coburn, cochair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma. "This new initiative will work to stop HIV in its tracks by identifying those who are infected earlier and empowering these individuals to protect their own health and to prevent passing the virus on to others."

But advocates for people with AIDS said they fear that federal health officials, working with the Bush administration, are pushing HIV testing at the expense of more effective prevention measures, including comprehensive sex education.

"While it is clear that we must expand our efforts with strategies that remove barriers to early diagnosis and increase access to care and treatment, the United States cannot--must not-abandon those scientifically proven methods of HIV prevention that we know are effective," said A. Cornelius Baker, executive director of Whitman-Walker Clinic, an AIDS service and advocacy group in Washington, D.C.