The School Principal Needs to Know Your Child's HIV Status? Oh Please...

Did you know that if a school-aged child in Illinois tests HIV-positive, the Department of Health is required to notify that child's school principal? And if the child is enrolled in a public school, the principal must identify that child to the superintendent? And the principal may also tell the child's classroom teachers?

This law, part of the Communicable Disease Prevention Act, has been on the books since 1987. In the 22 years since its passage, no one has ever come up with a rational justification to support it -- that is, a justification based on sound public health principles rather than fear, hysteria or ignorance.

The typical defense of the school-notification law is this: we have to make sure our schools are as safe as possible. Indeed, when then governor Thompson signed the law, he wrote that his aim was "to be sure the greatest number of healthy people are protected from infection." Apparently the supporters of this law imagine that writing algebra problems on the chalkboard or singing in show choir presents a serious risk of HIV infection.

How does the identification of school children with HIV make a school safer? Here's the line we're all supposed to swallow: if a school knows which child has HIV, the staff can take precautions in case that child has some sort of accident that spills blood. But guess what? Schools are already required to use universal precautions whenever any child has a blood spill. Furthermore, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and state law require annual training for school personnel in universal precautions. The blood of an HIV-positive child needs no "special precautions."

When it comes to infection control, identifying school children with HIV tends to make a school less, rather than more safe. It would be impossible to identify every potentially infectious blood-borne pathogen in every student in a school. When staff are led to believe that infection risk lies primarily -- or even exclusively -- with HIV-positive children, they lose incentive to handle every potentially infectious bodily fluid in accordance with accepted universal precautions.

Here's the bottom line: if parents want their child's school to know that their son or daughter is HIV-positive, they can tell the principle. But requiring that schools be notified is bad law and bad public health.

Two months ago House Bill 90 was introduced in Springfield (the chief sponsor is Representative LaShawn Ford) that would eliminate the school-notification provision from the Communicable Disease Prevention Act. Sounds like a no-brainer, yes? Well, many legislators are having a heck of a time understanding this issue (our favorite comment from a state representative: "I was an EMT, and if I'm called to a school I have to know everything about that child so I don't kill him!"). So now is the time for you to call your state representatives and tell them to support HB90. You can find your state reps by searching here.