AIDS TREATMENT NEWS No. 114 - November 4, 1990
John S. James
The travel restrictions had caused over 140 organizations to boycott the June, 1990, Sixth International Conference on AIDS in San Francisco, and could have cancelled the May, 1992, Eighth International Conference planned for Boston. Harvard University, which along with the International AIDS Society is sponsoring the 1992 Conference, had announced that it would withdraw its sponsorship if Congress did not act on the travel restrictions this year (see story in Science, September 28, 1990, page 1495). Although over a year remains before the Conference, expensive commitments must be made far in advance, and it might not have been possible to move the meeting elsewhere.
The new law will not by itself end the travel ban. But it clearly makes the Bush Administration and its Department of Health and Human Services responsible for the decision. Public-health experts within HHS had called for removing the travel restrictions for all diseases except tuberculosis. But the White House said that it could not change the policy on HIV (although it could on all other diseases), because HIV alone had been added to the list by Congress, in 1987 legislation sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina).
The travel restrictions remain in effect, and no immediate change is expected. Health and Human Services must analyze what the new law requires it to do, and then formulate its policies. But the new legislation ends the stalemate under which both Congress and the White House were passing the buck to each other.
Major credit for the improvement belongs to Massachusetts legislators Senator Edward Kennedy and Congressman Barney Frank, and to Harvard University.
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