H.I.V. Testing Stirs Bitter, Pointless Controversy

By now, even that guy who first had sex with that AIDS-infected monkey knows that getting tested for H.I.V. is a really good thing. Well, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention just issued a recommendation that basically everyone short of nuns and eunichs should be tested. In response, some civil liberties groups and lobbyists for people with AIDS have stamped down their feet. "The CDC wants to do make it easier to get tested and dissolve the stigma attached to having AIDS," said Sheryl Conway, spokesperson for Housewives with AIDS (HAIDS). "But I say, 'Where was the CDC when I got AIDS?' No way, buster, you're not making it easier for these kids to get tested. Not while I'm still alive." Obviously, this opposition makes no sense. But I knew this way back in 1981, when my doctor said at my routine checkup that there's this new disease - a couple people in San Francisco have it, it's not that big a deal - but did I want to get tested anyway? "Doc, you can test me for anything you want," I said. "Ebola, cowpox, mental retardation, lymphogranuloma venereum, whatever. Anyone who opposes voluntary AIDS testing is a sack of shit." Vindicated.