A commission created by President Ronald Reagan made many recommendations in a 1988 report related to AIDS, including the establishment of HIV criminal laws by the states. A member of that commission now believes it is time for states to review those laws. Colleen Conway-Welch, PhD, told The American Independent “it’s probably past time to go back and subject those laws to scientific scrutiny.” In 1990, based on the recommendations from the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic, Congress mandated that states certify to the Department of Health and Human Services that they had ways to prosecute intentional exposure to HIV. By 2000, all 50 states had certified they could do so, with 39 states using HIV-related criminal laws and the rest by using existing criminal laws.

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