Again, you're not hearing me… All of this is fine and dandy for obvious reasons if you are already known to be HIV+... What you still haven't answered is exactly what you're referring to as what you're saying now does not sound like what I understood you to be saying originally. What I'm getting at is making the HIV test itself mandatory to determine whether or not you have HIV in the first place. THAT is what I'm getting at... It's all fine and dandy to have regulations for controlled substances and the processes that you have to follow. I get that part.
Where my issue comes into play is making the HIV test itself mandatory. Both in Canada as well as in the United States, there is this thing called the "Patient Bill of Rights". One of the things that it outlines very clearly is that when it comes to testing and/or treatment, the patient has a basic fundamental right to refuse. Furthermore, from the safety perspective, being HIV+ in and of itself does not possess an immediate safety issue to the general public. Furthermore, making this test mandatory automatically sets the assumption that if you work in the aviation industry, automatically you must be sexually active and are promiscuous by nature. This in an of itself helps promote the perpetual stigma that still surrounds HIV to this very day, even in larger communities. While I agree that if you're sexually active, especially if you're promiscuous, it only makes sense to get STI testing, this does not mean that working in the aviation industry automatically means that you are sexually active. Also, making the test mandatory both violates your basic fundamental right to refuse the testing, and it puts you at a disadvantage, largely for insurance purposes when you begin to build a paper trail, even if the test results are negative. Simply put, making it mandatory when being HIV+ in an of itself is in no way a safety issue, only further promotes the everyday stigma that we as people living with are faced with on a daily basis on many levels.
