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 Those policies include support for civil marriage rights for
same-sex couples, opposition to so-called conversion or reparative
therapy and support for health insurance plans that include
comprehensive transgender healthcare services.
"The LGBT community deserves the same high quality care that any
community in the United States should be getting, but may not be
getting," said Dr. Wayne J. Riley, president of the American College
of Physicians.
A new policy position paper from the college, published in the
Annals of Internal Medicine, is the result of more than a year of
work, Riley told Reuters Health.
"It’s based upon our longstanding policy in regard to eliminating
healthcare disparities," said Riley, who is also a clinical
professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in
Nashville.
The LGBT community faces similar health concerns as the rest of the
population, according to the organization in its paper, but some
disparities may be worse among LGBT people.
For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
estimates that some 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with
HIV. About one case in six is undiagnosed.
While the CDC says only about 4 percent of U.S. men are gay or
bisexual, they represent about two-thirds of the country’s new
infections.
Also, the American College of Physicians writes that lesbian and
bisexual women are less likely to be screened for breast or cervical
cancer, compared to heterosexual women.
A separate paper in the same issue of the journal reports that
lesbian girls and women are less likely to receive the human
papillomavirus vaccine, which helps prevent cervical cancer.
The position paper identifies nine policy positions the organization
supports. For example, it says that gender identity, which is
different than sexual orientation, be included in nondiscrimination
and antiharassment policies.
Also, the organization says health insurance plans should include
comprehensive transgender healthcare services and provide all
services to transgender people as they would to others.
"It focuses in on making sure that transgender individuals can
access the appropriate level of healthcare services to provide them
with the opportunities that you or I and anybody else has with
health and wellness," Riley said.
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The paper also comes out against the use of so-called conversion or
reparative therapy, which has been banned by an increasing number of
U.S. states.
"We agree conversion therapy is not a wise use of healthcare
resources," Riley said.
The organization also supports civil marriage rights for same-sex
couples. Denying those rights has a negative impact on physical and
mental health, and contributes to stigma and discrimination, it
says.
The top editors of the New England Journal of Medicine also urged
the U.S. Supreme Court to require "the full recognition of same-sex
marriage," in a recent editorial.
"It’s important, because we know from our members that simple things
like hospital visitation and participation in the care of LGBT
patients has e problem around the country," Riley said.
The quality of healthcare should be consistently provided for all
population groups, he said.
"This speaks to the fact that the nation's largest specialty society
comes down on the side of health equity for all," he added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1zTQ0NT
http://bit.ly/1zTZsAR Annals of
Internal Medicine, online May 11, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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