Routine HIV-testing policies

The recommendation by Rennie & Behets in the January 2006 issue1 urging policy-makers and health workers to reflect on the ethical significance of routine testing policies for people where protection against discrimination and stigma-related violence does not exist is well taken but, in certain ways, overstated. If the testing policy outpaces our capacity to meet the stipulated or implicit ethical preconditions (strict confidentiality,...