published Monday in the journal Clinical

Widespread use of anti-HIV drugs in Los Angeles County could reduce new AIDS cases by almost 40%, but would also double the number of cases in which the virus had developed a resistance to drug therapy, according to a USC and Rand Corp. study.

The paper, published Monday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, comes in response to growing support for the so-called test-and-treat method of treating HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS. Such policies call for universal testing and rapid treatment of HIV patients with a combination of antiretroviral drugs.

Earlier this month, doctors said they had functionally cured a newborn of HIV after treating the infant quickly with antiretrovirals. Last week, a French medical study reported that early drug therapy appeared to be linked to the cases of 14 HIV patients who failed to get sicker when they quit taking their medication.

Though both of those reports seemed to lend weight to the argument for early treatment, opponents say that widespread use of early drug therapy may lead to more resistant strains of the virus.