San Francisco Chronicle - October 1, 2008
Leslie Fulbright, lfulbright@sfchronicle.com.

In 1993, amid a nationwide hysteria about transmission, Congress approved adding HIV to a list of communicable diseases that prevented infected visitors from entering unless they went through a lengthy waiver process. Since then, activists, advocates and some lawmakers have been fighting to reverse that law.

They made progress in July when President Bush's global AIDS relief plan included legislation that removed the statutory requirement that HIV be included on the list of diseases that pose a health risk.

But that did not automatically change the regulations, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services must make the decision to remove HIV from the list of "communicable diseases of public health significance."

Until that happens, the Department of Homeland Security, which handles some immigration services, is streamlining the process for HIV infected visitors obtaining visas for less than 30 days.

Under the new rule, everyone with HIV applying for short-term visitor visas - a moderately small population - will be given a waiver rather than being evaluated on a case-by case basis, said Amy Kudwa, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security. She estimated the new process would be in effect by Friday.

It is expected that the department will remove HIV completely from the list within a year, Kudwa said.

In the meantime, advocates are being cautious with their optimism.

"We will be very happy if they in fact get HIV completely removed from the list," said Brian Moulton, associate counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, one of the organizations fighting against the travel ban. "They need to make the entry requirements for those with HIV the same as any other person."

Moulton said the law was enacted at a time when people didn't really understand the nature of HIV transmission and there was a lot of hysteria.

"Public health officials had an understanding that it wasn't a risk to have people with HIV walking down the street but the general public and some elected officials still had a misunderstanding," he said. "Fear and ignorance drove the legislative process."

The streamlined waiver process is not what people have been advocating for, said Judith Auerbach, who directs the science and public policy program at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

"It is a partial solution that affects a subset of people and does not eliminate all the barriers," Auerbach said. "We want all the language eliminated, the regulatory as well as the statutory. There is no grounds for it; it is a discriminatory practice."

The U.S. is one of 13 countries - including Sudan and Saudi Arabia - with such a ban, according to Gay Men's Health Crisis, a New York nonprofit that provides services and programs for people affected by HIV/AIDS.

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