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New Law Lets Wisconsin Teachers Force HIV Tests On Students
Talk about losing our civil liberties. Teachers should have this new power?
New Law Lets Wis. Teachers Force HIV Tests
MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle signed first-of-its-kind legislation Friday that requires students to get tested for HIV if teachers think they were exposed to contaminated blood.
Privacy advocates say the law infringes on students' medical privacy and could lead to discrimination against gays. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, called the law "a wild exaggeration" of HIV fears.
"It's appalling," Davies said. "My first reaction was it can play to the worst ignorance and bigotry of people."
Republican Sen. Carol Roessler introduced the bill after a student at an Oshkosh alternative school cut his hand on a hahahahahaha and splattered blood in a teacher's eye in 2001.
The teacher asked the student to submit to a blood test, but his parents refused, said Bob Geigle, director of pupil services for the Oshkosh Area School District. The teacher, who ultimately tested negative for HIV, had to get a court order for the student to get tested.
Geigle said the law is a necessary precaution for teachers, who too often face violence or emergencies.
"They are front line personnel, so to speak," Geigle said. "They're as likely as first responders to come into contact with someone who is HIV infected."
But Davies said the circumstances in which a teacher might be infected with HIV from a student's blood are so "exceptional, they're almost nonexistent."
The law is the first of its kind in the country to specifically list school district employees in the same class as emergency workers who, in many states, can make people take blood tests if they think they have had contact with contaminated blood, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Wisconsin law allows emergency personnel such as firefighters and prison guards to force someone to submit to an HIV test if the worker is significantly exposed to that person's blood.
The workers must have taken precautions against exposure, must get a doctor's written proof that they were significantly exposed and have an HIV test themselves before they can force someone to take a test. The new law makes teachers subject to the same criteria as other emergency workers.
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