In 2006, President George W. Bush proposed relaxing his administration’s travel restrictions on HIV-positive foreigners wishing to enter the United States. But now, as today’s December 6 deadline for public comment on the proposal arrives, advocates are criticizing the revisions as being even more restrictive (sfgate.com, 12/5).
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the proposed revisions would require HIV-positive foreigners to prove that they are carrying “an adequate supply of antiretroviral medicines” while traveling. Advocates fear that this stipulation may further stigmatize positive travelers, who would be forced to disclose their status to local consular offices while verifying their drug supply.
“Now we have people looking over their shoulders, not only at the diagnoses, but how they are being treated,” says Dr. Paul Volberding, chief of medicine at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco and adviser to Physicians for Human Rights. “I would say that is laughable, if it wasn’t such a serious thing.”
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