Indonesian AIDS patients face microchip monitoring

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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Lawmakers in Indonesia's remote province of Papua have thrown their support behind a controversial bill requiring some HIV/AIDS patients to be implanted with microchips — part of extreme efforts to monitor the disease.

Local health workers and AIDS activists called the plan "abhorrent."

"People with AIDS aren't animals; we have to respect their rights," said Tahi Ganyang Butarbutar, a prominent Papuan activist.

But legislator John Manangsang said by implanting small computer chips beneath the skin of "sexually aggressive" patients, authorities would be in a better position to identify, track and ultimately punish those who deliberately infect others with up to six months in jail or a $5,000 fine.

The technical and practical details still need to be hammered out, but if the proposed legislation gets a majority vote as expected, it will be enacted next month, he and others said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h8hyiNfeN4rzKtKEIOrmykpiGTlQD94LDRBG0

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Okay, setting rights issues aside, aren't you simply making it less likely that those people who are at risk are going to get tested? Why would you want to face the possibility of submitting yourself to 24/7 government surveillance? It's already hard enough for many people to face getting tested for a virus that is almost always fatal. This just makes it that much harder to do.

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1. My niece who lived in Thailand died of Aids having been infected by her

husband who also died.

To this day the family still says it was a brain tumor.


Even though Thailand is very open and honest about it shame still infects families. If we had known we could have gotten her the medicine to save her life.

The only remedy is, as you point out, honesty and acceptance.

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2. I'm sorry about your niece.

:(

yes, as Bill Clinton has pointed out, the best way of helping stem the spread of HIV is simply getting people to go get tested - once they know they are HIV+, their behavior changes in response to that knowledge. If, on the other hand, you say to people, "we want you to get tested, but if you test positive, we are going to chip you and watch you 24/7 and your movements," then there are a good number of people who will say, 'then I'll avoid getting tested until I start getting sick or until the last minute.'