State, Pierce County Split On Aids Data

Fri., May 14, 1999

From Staff

The state and Pierce County may be on a collision course about the best way to track people who have the virus that causes AIDS.

Pierce County officials told the state Health Board on Wednesday that they plan to hold on to the names of infected people even if new state rules require that name records be destroyed.

The county policy, which took effect Jan. 1, has been successful in tracking the spread of HIV, they said.

But the state board voted 5-3 against changing its draft language to allow for the local exceptions Pierce County had sought. A final vote is expected in July.

Instead of tracking names, the state’s proposal would assign a unique identification code to each Washington resident who tests positive for the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. To protect privacy, name records would be regularly purged from local health department files. The codes, not names, would be sent to the state Health Department.

The state board’s vote effectively told its staff to stick with plans to use a code system, based on King County’s plan, as the model for HIV tracking.

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