Second Baby Born with HIV

Last April, a baby girl was born with the AIDS virus in Los Angeles, just a month after the first case was announced in Mississippi. The LA baby has been receiving treatment ever since she was four hours old, and her infection has seemingly been put into remission and possibily cured due to the very early and proactive treatment that she received. This baby's mother did not take her HIV medication during the pregnancy, allowing the infectious disease to spread to the unborn child. Although the mother was given AIDS drugs during labor in an effort to prevent the transference of the virus, the baby was tested and proved to be infected. Now, almost a year later, the baby is still being treated and seems to be very healthy. The Mississippi baby, now 3 1/2 years old, stopped treatment after 18 months and seems to be free of the infection. 

The reason these two babies, especially the second, were so successful in their treatment was the proactive measures that doctors took very soon after the babies were born. The LA baby began treatment four hours after birth, which contributed significantly to her survivorship and recovery. These proactive treatments could've been further improved if the babies could have been tested for the virus before they were born. If doctors knew the situation before the baby was even born, they would've been even more prepared to treat the child and could begin treating the mother before the baby was born. 

The bill I'm following, requiring an educational program for the development, provision, and evaluation of genetic disease testing, should be passed because it provides parents with the background knowledge to make an informed decision about prenatal screening and testing. This bill requires the Department of Public Health to include prescribed information regarding the environmental health in the patient educational information and to post that information on the department's web site, to send a notice to all distributors of the information to inform them of any changes, and encourages obstetrician-gynecologists and midwives to discuss the environment health factors with their patients. This bill should be passed because it allows further things to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to undergo a prenatal test, which is a decision which should be well-thought out and informed. 

History of Prenatal Testing

Prenatal tests were first introduced in the mid-1960s due to the discovery of the chromosomal mutation associated with Down Syndrome. The mutation that causes Down Syndrome is a trisomy in chromosome 21, which means that instead of the normal 2 copies of this chromosome, there is an extra copy which causes developmental issues in the child. Doctors and geneticists then realized they could study embryonic DNA by abstracting amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman-this procedure is known as amniocentesis. Early on, doctors would only conduct amniocentesis on women who were older than 35, because they were at higher risk of a child with a chromosomal anomaly. This process can be used to test unborn babies for genetic diseases such as Down Syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, neural tube defects, and a variety of chromosomal disorders. The discovery of this type of genetic test was the foundation for the establishment of several more genetic testing procedures founded in the past decade. 
Below is a chart depicting the types of prenatal tests and the risks/benefits of each: 

Below is a timeline that spans from pre-conception to post-pregnancy and identifies the times when certain prenatal tests/screens would take place: