State Ready to Finance AIDS Tests on Babies, Official Says

SACRAMENTO —  The state will finance a program to test newborn babies for the AIDS virus if the federal government does not do it, a state health official said.

The state is seeking federal funding for a project to assess the spread of the virus in childbearing women and newborns over a three-month period, involving an estimated 120,000 babies.

But, according to spokeswoman Kassie Edgington of the state Department of Health Services, “We are going ahead with the program with or without federal funding.” She said Thursday that Health Services Director Ken Kizer was in Atlanta to discuss funding for the project with officials of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

“If we don’t get the federal money, we are going to come up with the money ourselves. We might have to scale down the project a little bit. Basically, it will give us data on what’s considered a low risk group--heterosexual women of childbearing age.”

Edgington said the plan calls for testing every newborn baby anonymously for AIDS antibodies. The test results would not be given to doctors and parents but used to give the state an accurate assessment of the extent of the AIDS threat, she said.