Lord Fowler

The House of Lords Select Committee on HIV and AIDS in the United Kingdom published its report yesterday.  The Committee, chaired by former Social Services Secretary, Lord Fowler, spent eight months taking evidence and has produced the first major analysis for some years. 

As the Committee notes in it summary:

 ”This report examines what is necessary to tackle the epidemic in this country. We believe above all that a new priority must be given to prevention. The advice of the 1980s—on using a condom, on reducing numbers of sexual partners and on not using contaminated needles—remains good today. We argue for a new national campaign to raise public awareness generally, but stress that this is only one part of a general prevention policy…

Our aim is to break down the barriers that stand in the way of people coming forward for testing. For that reason, we propose that testing should go beyond the traditional settings of genitourinary medicine and antenatal clinics. We need to further encourage testing by general practitioners, and ensure that they take a full part in the efforts to reduce HIV. We also propose the legalisation and regulation of home testing.”

It’s a busy schedule but should be particularly interesting as we are getting closer to understanding the problems and possibilities of the various organisations trying to protect all of us from some particularly nasty diseases.