Public responsibility and home tests for HIV.

: This essay presents the authors' perspective on home test kits for HIV/AIDS diagnosis. The approval and introduction of a private option for initial diagnosis threatens to lessen and/or displace public efforts to diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS. Individual diagnoses should not be a substitute for a concerted public effort to address this national health care concern. Making home test kits available may become an exercise in excluding groups from community concern, thus isolating the high risk groups who are in greatest need of public health services. The home test kits must not replace the concept of social responsibility and a commitment to public health.