Tom Coburn

Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma physician, was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1994. In the following viewpoint, he argues that AIDS has continued to spread in the United States because standard public health measures—such as routine testing, reporting names of infected individuals to public health departments, and notifying sexual partners of HIV-infected individuals—have not been used. Coburn contends that although these methods have been used successfully against other sexually transmitted diseases, political pressures have prevented their utilization against AIDS. He describes legislation he introduced in 1997 that would implement some of these public health policies, such as mandatory disclosure of HIV-positive tests to state public health departments. Such measures would help prevent the further spread of AIDS and enable HIV-positive individuals...