Government Wants Routine HIV Testing for Americans

The Centers for Disease Control says that all Americans should be checked routinely for HIV as often as any other blood test.

Federal health recommendations announced Thursday say that all Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 should be tested regularly for HIV, and the testing should become as common as a cholesterol level check. Doing so would help doctors catch HIV infections earlier, and hopefully stop or at least slow the spread of the deadly virus. The federal recommendations aren’t legally binding—yet—but they will influence what doctors do and suggest to patients, and they will probably affect what health insurance programs cover.