Whitman-Walker Clinic Reports 25% Drop in HIV Testing Since Sept. 11 Attacks

Public health officials and workers of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, a leading not-for-profit HIV/AIDS clinic in Washington, D.C., are "baffled" by a 25% drop in the number people who get tested for HIV since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, "WAMU News" reports. A WWC spokesperson said, "Twenty-five percent of HIV testing in a city that has such a high HIV-incidence rate is pretty alarming. And we just don't know why," adding that perhaps the Sept. 11 attacks have "scared people away" from getting tested "out of fear they'll get more bad news." The District of Columbia's AIDS rate per capita is twelve times the national average (Singh, "WAMU News," NPR, 11/28).