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Loading ...Repeal Of Discriminatory HIV Travel Law Goes To President
07.25.2008 8:00am EDT
(Washington) The U.S. House has approved repeal of a law barring HIV-positive visitors and immigrants from entering the country. The legislation now goes to the President’s desk.
The measure was included in legislation reauthorizing PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.The ban repeal measure was tacked onto the bill by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) and passed the Senate last week.
“Congressional backing for the repeal of this unjust and sweeping policy that deems HIV-positive individuals inadmissible to the United States is a huge step forward for equality,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.
“The HIV travel and immigration ban performs no public health service, is unnecessary and ineffective. We thank our allies on the Hill who fought to end this injustice and now call on President George W. Bush to sign the PEPFAR bill into law and ask Secretary of Health and Human Services Leavitt to remove the remaining regulatory barriers to HIV-positive visitors and immigrants,” he said.
The travel and immigration ban prohibits HIV-positive foreign nationals from entering the U.S. unless they obtain a special waiver, which only allows for short-term travel. Current policy also prevents the vast majority of foreign nationals with HIV from obtaining legal permanent residency in the United States.
The ban originated in 1987 and was explicitly codified by Congress in 1993, despite efforts in the public health community to remove the ban when Congress reformed U.S. immigration law in the early 1990s.
While immigration law currently excludes foreigners with any “communicable disease of public health significance” from entering the U.S., only HIV is explicitly named in the statute. For all other illnesses, the Secretary of Health and Human Services retains the ability, with the medical expertise of his department, to determine which illnesses truly pose a risk to public health.
Gay and HIV/AIDS rights advocates have been fighting for repeal of the ban for more than a decade.
to “The Truth Said”,
I can be persuaded to see at least part of the points of view of someone else, But you… You have absolutely nothing to offer to help me get beyond my fears on this issue.
There are far more finely reasoned points of view here than yours or mine and I will read them. Not everyone has the same point of view, that is OK, name-calling is not OK. I will not call you names on a public forum, not even here on the internet.
Morgan, you’re such an idiot. Just can’t believe how stupid one can be nowadays.
This is finally a resolution to what should have happened several years ago. There shouldn’t be opposition, unless you have a twisted right-wing value. Good on Bush for signing… he actually seems humanitarian during his final days. There is no “burden” on hospitals and organizations… the economy should worry about house prices and developing new fuel technologies, not HIV.
You are an ignorant bigot
I can’t believe the people on this forum. Noone can have a point of view without name-calling. One of the biggest weaknesses of the gay community. I guess this is how the gay community enforces uniformity of point of view. Have a different point of view, you are instant pariah, instant outcast. Gay people just can’t tolerate differences in point of view.
FEAR is a horrible thing. Its caused many unnecessary actions that have adversely affected a great many lives.
Sexual orientation has nothing to do with HIV/AiDS in the view that if one is gay then one has it, but rather, performing unsafe sex and not getting tested(possible and current partners also) as well as not informing ones self of how its transmitted lead to the aquiring of this crippling disease.
I personally plan on having any future partner tested before entering a sexual relationship, as well as having myself tested.
The Truth Said: “Morgan and his alias Jonathan are moronic trolls.” Morgan and I are two different people, do not know each other, and have completely different views.
Advanced Alternative HIV Treatment Bio-Tech
Planet earth is technologically advanced and developed more than ever before. Electricity, Nuclear, DNA, Electromagnetic Radiation, Oxygen is all being used to treat and cure several viral infections in hospitals and clinics but unfortunately none of such technologies have ever been widely used on HIV.
Some say, the above technologies are too expensive to be adopted in Africa, some say they don’t know if the technology would work on HIV.
Here at Savec Health Systems in Belfast UK, we researched and developed alternative medicines commonly used for treatment of viral infections. One of our products is omnivir, a medical device that generates antiviral active oxygen, also known as medical ozone.
HIV, just like any other retro-virus has a lipid protective skin which is vulnerable to active antiviral oxygen / medical ozone . Once the HIV protective skin is damaged, the virus will be inhibited and rendered unproductive thus it cant make more copies or replicate itself and it eventually dies.
Active oxygen deactivates and eventually kills the HIV by destroying its protective skin. Using omnivir medicine properly will help to reduce the HIV viral load in the body, enabling the body to fight opportunistic infections on its own. Omnivir gas is quickly absorbed into the whole body and lymph, even into the bone marrow where it acts against the viruses. The active oxygen’s destructiveness nature on HIV, virus and bacteria is partly attributed to the oxidation (burning of viruses) of unsaturated bonds in the phospholipids and lipoprotein architecture of the bacteria, viruses. All viruses cant live in oxygen , (they breathe nitrogen) , thus surrounding them with highly active form of oxygen / medical ozone will quickly inactivate and kill them.
Because omnivir gas can oxidise (burn) a wide spectrum of ailment causing organisms (pathogens), it is therefore very helpful for recovery from AIDS and Opportunistic Infections. When a patient is diagnosed with AIDS, literally she will be suffering from several conditions, from karposi skin cancer to diarrhoea (see HIV symptoms). Omnivir gas technology has been successfully used to treat majority of those AIDS conditions, some therapist across the world reporting 99.99% remission success rate, see http://www.savechealthsystems.com/omnivir.html for more information.
Omnivir treatment gas does not only kill HIV or opportunistic infections, but also helps to boost the immune systems by raising the CD4 count. The immune system contains different types of cells that help protect the body from infection. One of these types of specialized cells are called the CD4 or T-cells. HIV attacks these types of cells and uses them to make more copies / multiply. And in doing so, HIV weakens the immune system, making it unable to protect the body from illness and infection. The less the CD4 cell count the more you are susceptible to AIDS causing infections. Using omnivir will help you stay health and live a normal long life by killing the HIV and aiding reproduction of the CD4 T Cell.
By Savec Health Systems http://www.savechealthsystems.com