Miami Herald (MH) - Thursday, May 30, 1991
Lizette Alvarez; Herald Staff Writer

The delay leaves in effect the current immigration policy, which bans entry to those carrying the AIDS virus as well as several other communicable diseases.

In January, Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan made a tentative decision to remove AIDS from a list of communicable diseases whose carriers cannot gain entry to the United States.

He gave the public until June 1 to comment before making the decision final.

But after the proposal stirred fierce debate, Sullivan, who will make the final decision, urged extending the time for comment by two months, HHS said.

Sullivan also wants more time to meet with Justice Department officials, who are in charge of immigration and would carry out the policy, said John Gibbons, Sullivan's spokesperson.

Controversy over the decision has been growing, and an administration official familiar with the debate said the Justice Department opposes lifting the restrictions.

But Gibbons said Wednesday that politics wasn't involved. Sullivan "has some legitimate question about the potential economic burden on the United States," Gibbons said.

Under current law, people seeking permanent residency in the United States must be tested for HIV, the virus believed to cause AIDS. If they are found to be infected, their residency request will be denied.

Tourists and other visitors are asked when they apply for a visa to enter the United States whether they have any "dangerous contagious" diseases, including AIDS. Those who say yes are not allowed to come into the country.

In November, Congress ordered HHS and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to review the list of communicable diseases. The list should be based solely on "current epidemiological principles and medical standards," Congress said.

Two months later, Sullivan made his tentative decision to drop AIDS from the list along with gonorrhea, syphilis and leprosy -- none of which are transmitted through casual contact -- leaving only tuberculosis, which can be transmitted through the air.

Since then, HHS and the Centers for Disease Control have received more than 39,000 letters from the public, 90 percent of them criticizing the decision to lift the ban.

Letter-writers feared taxpayers would suffer the brunt of allowing foreigners with HIV into the country, CDC officials said. They also feared the disease would spread, despite Sullivan's assurance that AIDS is not passed on through casual contact.

"He got this glut of letters saying this is insane," an official familiar with the issue said.

Over the past week, as rumor spread that Sullivan was considering reversing his decision, AIDS activists, gay rights groups and the public health establishment reacted angrily from the other direction. They say Sullivan is bowing to political pressure from the administration, and that the government is sending mixed signals to a nation already mixed up about AIDS.

"Politics hasn't entered Secretary Sullivan's decision," Gibbons said.

Harvard University, which will sponsor the eighth International AIDS conference in Boston in 1992, is threatening to cancel the event if HIV remains on the banned list of diseases.

Last year, AIDS activists in San Francisco boycotted the Sixth Annual International AIDS conference because of the travel ban on individuals with HIV, the very people whose illness the conference was addressing.

The World Health Organization denounced the travel ban, as did the International AIDS Society and the International League of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Robert Bray, director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said the United States is guilty of exporting, not importing, AIDS.

"It's AIDS-phobia," Bray said. "It allows people to stigmatize and discriminate not only against people with AIDS, but foreigners in general."

Bray and other activists argue that most immigrants and tourists with HIV contract it in this country.

"I think it's a crime to deprive these individuals from access to any meaningful care and treatment," said Manuel Laureano-Vega, executive director for Miami's League Against AIDS.

"Sending them back to a Third World country that doesn't have the health care system to care for them and are behind in their attitude toward AIDS is wrong. Then you are exporting AIDS."

The prohibition banning travelers and immigrants with HIV from entering the country has adversely affected some of Miami's refugees since it passed in 1987.

Officials with Miami's Cure AIDS Now said they deliver meals to 500 HIV-infected Hispanics and 150 Haitians, some of whom have been waiting to become permanent residents.

"Dade County is going to be affected because a substantial number of people who came here from Cuba in 1980 fall in the high-risk group," said Miguel Chinchilla, spokesperson for ACT-UP Miami, an AIDS activist group. "And the Haitian community is also affected."

Laureano-Vega said most of his patients contracted AIDS in this country and have been here for years.

"Many of these people haven't been sitting around here smelling the roses. They have been working and contributing," Laureano-Vega said. "They have been working and paying into the system. They have as much right to the system as anyone else."

CAPTION: PHOTO Louis SULLIVAN

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