Health Workers Don’t Spread Hiv

The largest study yet of AIDS transmission from health care workers to patients found no evidence that the virus was passed along.

“I think most people should be reassured by these findings,” said Dr. Mary Chamberland, one of the study’s authors.

Americans have worried about the risk since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in 1992 that Florida dentist David Acer infected six of his patients with the virus. Investigators say they may never learn how the six were infected.

“This is not anything that is happening with any frequency,” Chamberland said.

“In fact, it’s happened only once.”

The likelihood of doctors infecting patients is so small that the CDC has not even tried to put a number on it, Chamberland said.

The CDC studied HIV infection among 22,171 patients of 64 physicians, dentists, technicians, podiatrists and other health care workers infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.