Campus HIV test site will close

The University of Pennsylvania's on-campus HIV test site will cease operation as of April 1, Hahnemann University Professor Michael Spence said yesterday. The site, which opened in the spring of 1993, is staffed by Hahnemann employees, who also staff the Women's Anonymous Test Site located in Center City. Spence, a professor of Community and Preventive Medicine at Hahnemann, said the sole reason he made the decision to close the site was lack of funding. "[The site] is funded by a federal program, and this year the award we got simply was not enough to keep the site open," he said. Associate Vice Provost for University Life and former HIV Task Force Chairperson Larry Moneta confirmed reports that the site lost its grant due to the low number of positive test results it turned out. "Basically, the federal government needed to see more positives to justify the testing site," he said. College junior and Facilitating Learning About Sexual Health member Jared Miller said he feels the testing is needed whether the results are positive or negative. "Part of offering testing is making sure people are clean before they have sex," he said, adding that he thinks people should be happy to see negative results. "We're sorry we can't get AIDS for them, but we're trying to be clean and safe here," he said. Student Health Educator and FLASH advisor Kurt Conklin agreed, saying that though he is disappointed, he feels this is the "trend of the future unless the federal government comes up with more money." Conklin added that if this is, indeed, the shape of things to come, more and more communities will have to start competing for AIDS testing money. "What kind of message is that sending?" he asked. "I don't care if we only find one positive a year," he added. "Anyone who has been sexually active since 1978 should be tested." Conklin speculated that since there is no longer a site on campus for students to use, FLASH and Student Health may possibly look into creating a program with the new test site at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He went on to answer questions raised as to why the University does not fund a site itself, explaining that the cost of a full HIV test is somewhere around $100. "If the University was to pay, you would see a huge increase in the costs of Student Health," he said. "I think that would be pretty unpopular with Penn students, even those with HIV concerns." Spence explained that the federal grant not only paid for the operations of the site itself, but it also provided salary for the staff members. Moneta explained that the site was a joint effort of Hahnemann, the University Dental School, the WATS site in Center City and Student Health Services. "The site was the major achievement of the HIV Task Force, and everyone who worked with it is very sad to go," he said.