Getting Closer to Removing the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban.

In a historic move the Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations that will start the process to lift the HIV travel and immigration ban. The ban is from the 80’s and has stigmatized and restricted the movement of people with HIV. The ban is based on discrimination, hate and fear. Andrew Sullivan writes,

Once the ban is lifted, the US will be able to become a venue for AIDS and HIV research conferences again (the US has been unable to host such events because of the ban for years), and leave behind the tiny number of countries – from Yemen to Saudi Arabia – that still actively stigmatize and penalize people with HIV in travel. It will remove a measure that discourages honesty about HIV, and promotes a stigma around the disease that makes effective prevention and treatment much harder. It will save lives. It will save relationships and marriages. It will place America where it belongs – at the forefront of global AIDS and HIV leadership. And because all immigrants have to prove they will not be a public charge and have private health insurance, and because a fee was added to the visa application to pay for the costs of enforcement, the fiscal effect is minimal – and offset by taxes legal immigrants like yours truly will continue to pay.

This is great news.