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Editorial: End the US HIV Tourist Ban
| Last updated: 25.08.04 |
In this month’s lead article, we discover that the 17 year-old US policy barring HIV-positive visitors is not only unnecessary and unworkable, it also damaging the physical and mental health of people with HIV.
By forcing some people into taking treatment holidays, and causing mental anguish to anyone considering travelling to the US for whatever reason, it is clear that this anachronistic policy is dangerous and discriminatory.
Ironically, many with power in the US argued against adding HIV to the list of communicable diseases that bar entry to the States when the policy was first put into place in 1987. However, due to the occult intricacies of the US political system, a minority right-wing letter-writing campaign appears to have allowed this policy to become firmly entrenched. And when former President Clinton – who today attempts to do so much for people with HIV – had an opportunity to veto the bill before it became law in 1993, he balked for currently unfathomable reasons.
In 2004, the forced repatriation of HIV-positive tourists still happens. Last week my HIV clinician put me in touch with a fellow patient who had just been forcefully returned to the UK after he was repeatedly asked if he had AIDS by New York immigration officials, and who finally admitted he was positive under great duress. Shocked and angry, he had no idea until that point that he was an “undesirable”: in fact, few people are even aware that this ban exists.
This law can only be repealed by an act of Congress, and so I appeal to anyone who has any influence in the US to put pressure on the government to end the HIV tourist ban. Wouldn’t it be great if President Clinton himself campaigned to undo the damage he caused eleven years ago?