Saturday, October 31, 2009

Good News Indeed !

Compliments on the passage and signing of the Ryan White Act for better treatement and help of people with HIV/AIDS !

And especially for finally allowing those infected to enter the country legally. How wonderful that they may now bring their medications along with them with no more fear of their being discovered by some hyperactive immigrations/customs officer and using them as grounds to deny that person's entry. Until today, if they wanted in, they had to forego their meds and/or simply never take a test at all.
Health care is something different. With proper treatment, no one need waste away with this infection anymore.
Thank you, Mr. President, for ending an order for whose rescenscion the bushbaby had, even confined to his playpen, signed legislation to provide the basis for last fall.


Obama Lifts a Ban on Entry Into U.S. by H.I.V.-Positive People
The New York Times, By JULIA PRESTON, Published: October 30, 2009
President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”
[...]
President George W. Bush started the process last year when he signed legislation, passed by Congress in July 2008, that repealed the statute on which the ban was based. But the ban remained in effect.
It was enacted in 1987 at a time of widespread fear that H.I.V. could be transmitted by physical or respiratory contact. The ban was further strengthened by Congress in
1993 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina.
[...]
Once the ban is lifted, foreigners applying to become residents in the United States will no longer be required to take a test for AIDS.
In practice, the ban particularly affected tourists and gay men. Waivers were available, but the procedure for tourists and other short-term visitors who were H.I.V. positive was so complicated that many concluded it was not worth it.
For foreigners hoping to immigrate, waivers were available for people who were in a heterosexual marriage, but not for gay couples. Gay advocates said the ban had led to painful separations in families with H.I.V.-positive members that came to live in this country, and had discouraged adoptions of children with the virus.
Gay advocates said the ban also discouraged travelers and some foreigners already living in the United States from seeking testing and medical care for H.I.V. infection.
[...]
“We think this is going to give a very positive image of where the United States is going in terms of eliminating stigma and discrimination in relation to H.I.V.,” Dr. Socorro Gross, assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization, said Friday.


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