Humboldtian

Starting Jan. 1 HIV screening will become a routine part of medical exams in California, under a new law authored by North Coast Assemblywoman Patty Berg. Currently, patients have to consent to the test in writing. But the new law will lump HIV testing in with screens for maladies such as diabetes or high cholesterol. The new law does not force anybody to be screened for HIV, however. It will be added to routine health exams for patients from 13 to 64, unless they are their guardian specifically declines the screen. Last year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that HIV screening be added to routine exams, such as a patient’s annual physical.

Assembly Bill 682, which Berg, a Democrat from Eureka, coauthored with Bonnie Garcia, a Republican from Cathedral City, in rural Riverside County, received a near-unanimous vote in both houses of the Legislature. The only legislator to vote against the bill was Dennis Hollingsworth, a Republican state senator from Temecula, also in Riverside County.