Since 1987, the United States has imposed a travel ban on HIV-infected individuals entering the country as visitors or immigrants on the absurd premise that HIV appears on their list of “dangerous and contagious” diseases which present a public health risk.
The law specifically prohibits foreigners from immigrating or obtaining a travel visa to the United States. On July 30, 2008, President Bush (Yeah Bush of all people!)signed into law a five-year, $48 billion (£32.5 billion)bill to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world as well as to lift the ban on HIV+ travelers entering the USA.
However, the ban has still not actually been lifted and HIV/AIDS activists, who at first praising the Bush administration are becoming frustrated and impatient for an actual removal of the ban.
HIV/AIDS activists originally declared the ban to be unnecessary and unfair. The ban itself was not written into US law until 1993, during the Clinton Administration. This legislation made HIV the only specific medical condition mentioned as grounds for inadmissibility to the US. Activists have long argued that the ban was just another in a long string on US inconsistencies on HIV/AIDS policy. Many HIV professionals stated that the ban was not consistent with the international leadership role the United States has taken with PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief). Experts at the International AIDS conference last Autumn were full of praise for the new legislation on lifting the travel ban. However, since then very little has been done to actually lift the ban. Apparently, in order to do so, the Department of Health and Human Services must write a new rule, submit it for public comment, and finalise it. At the end of his tenure as President, some 58 Democrats submitted a letter to President Bush urging “swift action” on the issue.
Due to the ban, no major AIDS conference has been held on US soil since 1993 as no activists or researchers infected with the virus may enter the country without embarking on a complicated waiver process.
I was reading that in 1991, some 40,000 Haitian political refugees fled to the US. Of these refugees, 158 were detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba due to the HIV ban. For nearly twenty months, Guantanamo Bay hosted these 158 political refugees, due to either being HIV-positive, or a relative of one of the positive refugees.
Despite the fact Bush had signed the bill mandating removal of the ban into law, HIV remains on the list of “dangerous and contagious” diseases that may prevent entry into the United States. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security released a revised and “streamlined” process for obtaining a waiver, making it easier to obtain the necessary visa for postive indiviuals to enter the US. However, the Department of Heath and Human Services has still not removed HIV from the list of medical conditions which are grounds for exclusion from entering the country.
A study conducted in 2006 showed that of 1113 HIV positive survey respondents. 349 (31%) had traveled to the United States. Of those 349 that had traveled to the US, only 14.3% traveled with the mandatory waiver to obtain a travel visa. Many simply did not disclose their status. This study not only shows the inefficacy of the travel ban, but shows the harm presented to HIV+ individuals who desire to visit the United States. The study showed that patients on anti-retroviral therapy (212 patients) were more likely to go off their medication, increasing their chances of developing drug-resistant HIV strains or developing AIDS.
There are other countries around the world that, along with the US, maintain an archaic travel ban on people living with HIV. These countries are: Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Moldova, Russia, Armenia, and South Korea.
Given it's standing in the World should the United States still include itself amongst these countries in discriminating against people living with HIV?
We can just hope that the newly elected Obama Administration will take this somewhat contentsion bull by the horns and end the uneccessary discrimination of HIV+ people wishing to visit the USA.
At the risk of highjacking the Obama sound bite that helped him ride the crest of a wave to his historic victory - It's time for change! It is also time for hope. A hope that so many have in Barack Obama and his first term in office.
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