Badon presses for HIV tests in prisons

Badon presses for HIV tests in prisons
He vows to work to cut proposal's cost
Friday, September 15, 2006
By Ed Anderson
Capital bureau
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana prison officials should be required to test all 38,000 state inmates in custody and the 15,000 who pass through the system each year for AIDS, HIV and hepatitis, Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans, said Thursday.


Badon told a meeting of the House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice that he will file a bill for the April legislative session to make that happen.

He said the measure will start out as a carbon copy of House Bill 1166, which he filed for this year's session but did not push. He asked the committee to study the issue for debate at the session that starts April 30.

The Legislative Fiscal Office, the arm of the Legislature that analyzes the costs of proposed laws, said the cost of Badon's previous bill was about $14 million for the first year the testing and treatment program is in effect and $17 million the second year.

After that, the costs would level off to about $11.2 million a year, according to analyst Kristy Freeman.

Badon said the bill will contain language requiring prison officials to segregate inmates who test positive for the diseases, and would give prison officials the right to use "reasonable force in cases where an individual refuses to submit to (the) testing required."

"Public health issues far outweigh the privacy issues" of the individual inmates, Badon said. "These people have given up their rights (while in prison)."

One of the first things a male inmate does when released is return to his wife or girlfriend for, in many cases unprotected sexual activity, putting innocent people at risk, Badon said.

"It is a no-brainer to do what we can," he said.

He will work with Department of Public Safety and Corrections Secretary Richard Stalder and other state officials to reduce the costs of the testing and treatment, Badon said.

"The only way we can get our arms around AIDS cases is to reduce the number of new cases" and Badon's proposal takes a step in that direction, Dr. Kevin Stephens, director of the New Orleans Health Department, told the panel.

The state should have as its goal reducing the number of new HIV cases among inmates by 50 percent in five years, Stephens said.

Stalder told the committee that he can test all inmates if the Legislature approves enough money.

For Badon's previous bill, Freeman estimated that HIV and hepatitis tests cost about $40 each and treatment for various forms of hepatitis vary from $7,000 to $13,000 a year per case. HIV treatment costs run about $21,000 annually per case.

Stalder said of the 20,000 inmates in state-run prisons, 520 have been diagnosed with HIV and 390 are in treatment now.

He said the others may not want to be treated or the medicines prescribed may cause other health problems.

Stalder said there are about 2,000 inmates diagnosed with hepatitis C, but the state has financed treatment for only 55. He said many of the cases are not far enough along to be treated or "do not fit the treatment profile," including those who voluntarily agree not to take treatments or decline treatment because of the virulent drugs involved in addressing the illness.

Others, he said, will be out of jail in time to have nonprison doctors treat them.

"We cannot force treatment . . . if an individual elects not to participate" in the program, Stalder said. "The treatment for HIV and hepatitis C is very difficult. You have to be highly motivated to participate in these treatment regimens."

Stalder said his agency and the Department of Health and Hospital's Office of Public Health are looking for federal dollars to finance programs to prevent the spread of HIV, AIDS and hepatitis among inmates released by supplying them with condoms and education on ways to prevent the spread of the diseases and ways to treat them.

"Education is the key," Stalder said.

Badon said that approach won't work since most inmates released are undereducated and are used to a criminal lifestyle. As a result, mandatory testing is needed to stop the spread of the diseases, he said.

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Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5810