If you live in Michigan, please ask your representative to vote no if and when HB 4583 comes to a vote in the House. From the MM:

Under the proposed changes, a patient will sign a general medical consent which includes permission to test for HIV. If a physician decides to run an HIV test, they will have to get verbal consent before ordering the test and note it in the file. However, a patient is not allowed to verbally decline an HIV test. Patients who do not wish to be tested will be required to put that in writing.

[...]

Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Michigan Positive Action Coalition (MI Poz), a group of HIV-positive people and their supporters in Michigan, said the legislation was not needed.

"I think the problem with this legislation is that it is an answer seeking a problem," he said, noting that hospitals and other medical groups in Southeast Michigan have been complying with the current law, which requires anyone ordering an HIV test to provide a patient with pre-and post-test counseling, as well as sign a specific document on the issue created by the Michigan Department of Community Health.

"It does concern me that we are eliminating that requirement," said Byrum.

The bills sponsor is Representative Roy Schmidt (a democrat from Grand Rapids), to whom I just wrote this note:

Representative Schmidt,

I'm writing in regards to HB 4583, requesting that you withdraw it from consideration. As a sociologist who studies HIV/AIDS for a living, I can say that this law is unnecessary and will do more harm than good. HIV testing is a very sensitive practice that requires a great deal of trust between doctors and their patients. Consent for HIV testing is essential for that trust to be possible. As you are surely well aware, many new infections in Michigan are among African American men who have sex with men - a population that already holds a relatively high level of distrust for medical providers due to experiences of prejudice and mistreatment. Thus, this legislation will damage what is already a fragile relationship between these men and their providers, which would *lower* HIV testing rates due to men avoiding medical attention altogether.

If passed, this bill will have dire, unintended consequences. Please, I ask sincerely that you reconsider this unnecessary and wrongheaded legislation.

Regards,
Trevor Hoppe
University of Michigan

So polite of me! I'm even shocked.