SHERMAN OAKS, Calif.—AIM Healthcare Foundation. which today turned in its final report to the L.A. County Department of Public Health on the adult performer who initially tested HIV positive last week, insists that it has abided by the mandated timeframe to submit such results required by law.
While it has been reported that Patient Zero tested positive on Oct. 9, using AIM’s standard PCR-DNA test, AIM has stated that the county only accepts confirmatory Western Blot test results, a more specific test administered after an initial positive result.
“Under law, reporting to Los Angeles County HIV Epidemiology Program can only occur upon the return of a Western Blot test,” AIM counsel Jeffrey J. Douglas said. “Los Angeles County does not, and cannot under law, accept any other test results.”
With today’s confirmation and submission of the positive Western Blot test report to the county, Patient Zero had to have returned a positive result via this method within the past seven days. Thus, AIM has complied with the county’s report requirement, according to Douglas.
Douglas also stressed to AVN that reports or claims of AIM not complying with the county’s reporting requirements are false. And, specifically, that any claim by any public health official outside the Los Angeles County HIV Epidemiology Program, which receives the results and cannot share them with any other department within the County Department of Public Health, is improper.
“The timing of when the report comes in is based solely upon when the confirmatory test comes back, because as far as the county health department is concerned, any test other than a Western Blot doesn’t exist,” Douglas said. “That is the one and only test that they accept.”
This means, according to Douglas, that the timeline to report a positive test to the county starts when the results of the Western Blot test are received, and not at any time before.
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Jonathan Fielding, however, today disputed AIM’s contention that the Western Blot test is required to report an HIV+ patient to the county.
"They want to do a Western Blot test to confirm it. We would prefer to have it earlier because obviously there's a lot of transmission that could occur," Fielding said. "We need a high level of cooperation to prevent the spread of HIV."
What Fielding conveniently left out is that upon the positive PCR-DNA result, AIM immediately moved to identify, contact and test first and second generation exposures.
The crux of the debate is over what the county is legally required to accept as a positive test result, what Fielding claims they can accept, and what AIM says it is required to report.
So what, explicitly, does the law state?
California Health and Safety Code Section 121023 states, in part,"...each clinical laboratory, as defined in Section 1206 of the Business and Professions Code, shall report all CD4+ T-Cell test results to the local health officer for the local health jurisdiction where the health care provider facility is located within seven days of the completion of the CD4+ T-Cell test"
The CD4+ T-Cell test is a seemingly different test than the Western Blot, but AVN could not confirm this at press time.
