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The Bush administration last week reversed its plan to open up immigration
into the US to foreigners infected with HIV. The move has outraged AIDS
groups and officials within the government’s department of Health and Human
Services.

The policy of denying entry to people with HIV is ‘discredited and discriminatory’,
says Alan Fein, director of the Harvard AIDS Institute. Jonathan Mann, formerly
director of the WHO’s AIDS programme and now at Harvard, said: ‘It is appalling
that the strong recommendations of the very experts responsible for fighting
AIDS . . . are being totally disregarded.’

The restriction will stay in place for 60 days while health officials
draft a new plan. In the meantime, the HHS may draft regulations to allow
visitors entry for short stays. Nonetheless, the action is likely to lead
to protests at the international AIDS conference in Florence later this
month. Betsy Lenke of the AIDS pressure group ACTUP in New York said the
bar will be a ‘major issue’ in Florence. ‘That’s a pity because it takes
time away from other things.’

The reversal in policy also threatens next year’s conference in Boston.
The Boston meeting was almost cancelled in January because of the US immigration
policy. But pressure from the WHO and others persuaded the health minister
Louis Sullivan to announce that he would remove HIV from the list of ‘dangerous,
infectious diseases’ that preclude entry to the US. Officials at the WHO
have now decided to withdraw their support and funds from the conference.

Å®ÉúСÊÓƵs and pressure groups argue that the policy makes no sense
medically and is discriminatory. HIV cannot be transmitted casually as can
tuberculosis, for example. The policy is more likely to discourage people
from having HIV tests, they say.